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i. I 






THE 

OUTDOOR STORY ROOK 


I 























THE OUTDOOR 
STORY ROOK 


BY 

CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY 


> 


Author of 

Stories for Any Day,'* “Stories for Sunday Telling," “For 
the Children's Hour," “For the Story Teller," 
“Stones Children Need," “Tell Me 
Another Story," etc. 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 


CHICAGO 


BOSTON 


Copyright 1918 
By CAROLYN S. BAILEY 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 


PREFACE 


The stories contained in this volume are 
nature parables for little children. I have 
used outdoor facts of interest to every 
child in garden, field, forest, and stream 
as a basis for presenting every-day moral- 
ity in an indirect way. 

The goodness of the humble, the mira- 
cles that are happening with the seasons, 
and the adaptation of outdoor things to 
right lines of conduct may be taught to 
children through such nature stories in a 
permanent way. They stimulate the 
child’s imagination constructively, they 
train his powers of observation, and they 
develop his sympathy. Most important 
of all, the outdoor story helps the little 
child to feel himself a part of the life of 
nature and to apply in his own living her 
universal scheme of survival through work, 
sacrifice, perfection, and beauty. 


vi PREFACE 

The Outdoor Story Book is offered with 
this purpose to story tellers, teachers in 
day and Sunday schools, and to mothers. 
Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. 

New York, 1918, 



CONTENTS 



FALL 

PAGE 

I. 

The Sunflowers’ Country Cousin . 

3 

II. 

The Cricket Who Kept on Chirping 

8 

III. 

The Flower That the King Loved . 

13 

IV. 

The Acorn’s Adventure .... 

17 

V. 

The Sea Shell 

20 

VI. 

The Harvest 

24 

VII. 

The Red Leaf’s Message 

29 

VIII. 

The Dwarf in the Cornfield 

33 

IX. 

The Vine That Lost Her Blossoms 

37 

X. 

The Birds’ Thanksgiving . . . 

41 


WINTER 


XI. 

Bunny’s Winter Suit .... 

49 

XII. 

The Empty Nest 

53 

XIII. 

Why the Beaver Wore Old Clothes 

57 

XIV. 

The Water Beetle’s Surprise . . 

62 

XV. 

How the Otter Made the Best of It 

65 

XVI. 

The Tracks in the Snow . . . 

70 

XVII. 

The Bird Who Sang Thank You . 

73 

XVIII. 

The Christmas Wreath 

76 

XIX. 

The Snowman 

80 

XX. 

The Little Boy Who Found the 

Stars 

83 


viii 


CONTENTS 



SPRING 

PAGE 

XXL 

The Snowflake and the Snowdrop . 

91 

XXII. 

Spring and the Christmas Tree 

94 

XXIII. 

The Worm That Waited 

95 

XXIV. 

The Bluebird's New House . . 

100 

XXV. 

What Happened to Piper Frog . 

102 

XXVI. 

Roy's Surprises 

106 

XXVII. 

The Little Gold Cock Who Could 



Not Lie 

110 

XXVIII. 

The Snail 

115 

XXIX. 

The Ants 

116 

XXX. 

The Road That Wanted to be 



Beautiful 

121 

XXXI. 

The Little Plowboy 

126 

XXXII. 

The Housecleaning of the Princess 



Butterfly 

131 

XXXIII. 

The Spider 

137 

XXXIV. 

Father Woodchuck’s Party . . 

142 

XXXV. 

Arbor Day in Shady Lane . 

146 


SUMMER 


XXXVI. 

What the Sunbeams Saw 

151 

XXXVII. 

The Flower That Would Climb 

156 

XXXVIII. 

The Apple Tree Story .... 

161 

XXXIX. 

What the Pansies Thought 

166 

XL. 

The Dandelion 

169 

XLI. 

The Lucky Clover 

173 

XLII. 

The Frowzy Little Weed 

177 

XLIII. 

The Beetle Who Carried a Light . 

182 

XLIV. 

The Story of Twinkle .... 

185 


CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

XLV. The Cricket Who Ran Away . 192 

XLVI. The Feather in His Cap ... 198 

XLVII. The Magic Spectacles .... 202 

XLVIII. The Princess’ Looking-Glass 208 

XLIX. The Princess Who Rode with the 

Peddler 213 

L. The Giant on the Hill . . . .218 





FALL 
























THE 

OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


I 

THE SUNFLOWERS’ COUNTRY 
COUSIN 

The sunflowers thought themselves the 
most important flowers in the garden, and 
it was very easy to understand why. 

How grand they seemed, lifting their 
great brown and yellow sun hats so far 
above the garden beds, and higher than 
the vegetables even! They stood so tall 
that they could look over the garden wall 
and see whatever was going on in the 
road. It was a road from the country, 
long and sunny, and the sunflowers 
turned themselves so as to have as good 
a view of it as possible. Very little hap- 
pened up and down it that they did not 
see. 


4 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


They spied their little country cousin 
the very first day that she came. She 
was a wild sunflower, her seed blown by 
the wind to the side of the road, for no 
one would ever have taken the pains to 
plant her. But she was sturdy, and 
strong, and bright, and did her best to 
grow in the midst of the weeds and 
stones. She had heard from the birds 
about her wealthy cousins, the garden 
sunflowers. 

“They have more seeds than you could 
ever have,” the summer yellow bird 
twittered. 

So the little wild sunflower stood there 
in the road, come to make her cousins a 
visit. 

As soon as the garden sunflowers saw 
her, waiting down low on the outside of 
the wall, they began to put their heads 
together and rustle their leaves loudly, 
which was their way of talking. 

“Who can that little tramp be, stand- 
ing in the dusty road?” they asked each 
other. 

“Oh, that is your cousin from the coun- 


THE SUNFLOWERS’ COUNTRY COUSIN 5 


try, the wild sunflower,” twittered the 
smnmer yellow bird, helping himself to a 
mouthful of their seeds. 

Now the garden sunflowers did not 
want the rest of the garden to know that 
their family had come, in the fiirst place, 
from the country. 

^^Htishr they rustled to the yellow 
bird. “^Don’t sing .s0 loudly. No one 
will know that our country cousin has 
come if you will only keep quiet about it.” 

“But are you not going to ask your 
cousin to come in, now that she is here?” 
asked the yellow bird, who was a sociable 
little fellow. He was a wild canary, and 
he had hopes of some day visiting a canary 
who lived in a house. He knew how the 
wild sunflower felt. 

“No, indeed,” the sunflowers replied 
with a sound of scorn in their rustling. 
“And don’t you dare to bring any of her 
seeds into this garden. We are not going 
to look at her; we shall pretend that we 
haven’t seen her at all,” and with that the 
garden sunflowers turned themselves 
around and looked up in the sky at the 


6 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

sun. Their heads were heavy but they 
held them proudly. 

‘TDear me, who would have thought it 
of them!’’ chirped the yellow bird as he 
sat on the garden wall and looked down 
at the sunflowers’ little country cousin 
waiting outside in the road. 

No one would have been able to tell her 
from the garden sunflowers if she had 
only been taller. She stood up just as 
straight on her stalk, and she wore a 
brown and yellow hat, not so large as her 
cousins’ hats, but exactly the same shape. 

"'Tweet, tweet, just wait a little while,” 
the yellow bird sang to the wild sunflower. 
“Your cousins are very important people, 
and they always keep visitors waiting. I 
will fly up and down the road and let you 
know when they are ready to see you.” 

So the summer yellow bird flew around 
the little wild sunflower, singing to her 
and trying to keep her cheerful, but days 
and days went by and the garden sunflow- 
ers did not even speak to their cousin from 
the country. 

As the wild sunflower waited, straight 


THE SUNFLOWERS’ COUNTRY COUSIN 


7 


and bright out in the road, the summer 
went by and it was fall. The vine that 
covered the garden wall turned from 
green to red. The air was full of seeds, 
flying as fast as their wings could take 
them to other gardens. A number of the 
birds left to take their way south, and at 
last the little wild sunflower was the only 
flower by the side of the road. 

“Do you think that my cousins have 
forgotten about me?” the wild simflower 
asked the yellow bird at last in a soft, 
sighing voice. 

“Dear me, I don’t know,” chirped the 
yellow bird. “I’ll fly over the wall, 
though, and ask,” he sang, and so he went, 
although he knew that it wouldn’t do any 
good. When he came back his feathers 
were all puffed out with excitement. 

“They’re dead!” he twittered. “The 
frost killed them. They’re lying in a heap 
on the groimd. Oh, what shall I do for 
sunflower seeds to eat before I go south !” 

“Well, here I am,” said the little wild 
sunflower, who was strong enough to 
stand more cold than her garden cousins 


8 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


because she was from the country, ‘‘eat 

mer 

So the yellow bird had a good dinner 
of seeds before he went south, and so did 
some of the other birds. The little wild 
sunflower waited for them there in the 
road, until she had given away all of her 
seeds and the snow came. 


II 

THE CRICKET WHO KEPT ON 
CHIRPING 

He was the oldest Cricket in the gar- 
den, and his coat that had once been so 
shiny a black was turned rusty, almost 
the color of one of the brown oak leaves. 
He was very well known in the garden, 
for he had lived there so long, and every- 
one liked him. He was a cheerful little 
Cricket, always singing in rain or shine, 
in warm weather or cold. 

He had learned his song when he was 
a very young Cricket, and no one knew 


CRICKET WHO KEPT ON CHIRPING 


9 


how many times he had sung it since then. 
There was a little bit of his merry tune 
for the ants who worked all the time, but 
could not sing. There was a little bit of 
it for the garden mole who spent his days 
digging, and was blind. There was part 
of the Cricket’s song for the Child who 
lived in the house, but the Child had not 
heard it. It was the merriest part of the 
song and it said, 

“Chirp, chirp, sing and be gay! 

Somewhere a cricket chirps every day-” 

One morning when the wind was cold 
and dry leaves blew in and out of the 
garden, the Cricket started out to hop 
from the barn to the house. It was not 
such a long distance to go, but for an old 
Cricket it was quite a long journey. 

He hopped underneath the barn door 
to the road, and then for a little way along 
the road. A cold wind blew up from the 
cornfield and it chilled the Cricket’s back 
and made his legs stiff. Just for a mo- 
ment he stopped singing. He remem- 
bered how old he Was, and what a long 


10 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


distance it was for him to go to the house. 
He thought that he would just go to sleep 
and not sing any more; but he listened, 
and not a single other Cricket anywhere 
near was chirping. 

So the Cricket sang as loudly as he 
could, 

“Chirp, chirp, sing and be gay! 

Somewhere a cricket chirps every day-” 

It was very strange, but singing in the 
cold made the Cricket feel suddenly quite 
warm and comfortable. 

So he hopped cheerfully along the road 
and he met the farmer’s boy, coming from 
the woods with a bundle of sticks on his 
back. He held his head very high and did 
not look down for he was hurrying. His 
shoes were large and heavy, and he almost 
stepped on the Cricket. He did hurt one 
of the Cricket’s legs, but that did not 
matter for he had several other good ones. 
The Cricket hopped bravely on, but he 
did not feel like singing. He stopped a 
minute and listened. The wind was mak- 
ing the trees cry, but there was not an- 
other Cricket chirping anywhere about. 


CRICKET WHO KEPT ON CHIRPING 11 

So the Cricket sang again, 

“Chirp, chirp, sing and be gay! 

Somewhere a cricket chirps every day.” 

It was very strange, but singing as he 
limped along made the Cricket’s leg feel 
better. 

He was half way now from the barn to 
the house and that was a long way for a 
Cricket to have come. He thought of the 
fireplace in the house with its blazing logs 
and how he would creep between the 
bricks and keep warm all winter. All the 
way he chirped, but suddenly he came to 
a hole in the road. 

It was not a very large hole, but it 
looked large to the Cricket. It seemed 
to have no other side, or any bottom, or 
any way of crossing. The Cricket felt 
cold and stiff. He was afraid that if he 
tried to jump across he would fall in the 
hole. He stopped singing, but as he lis- 
tened he found that no other Cricket was 
chirping anywhere about. 

He gave a great leap! 


12 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


There he was, safe on the other side of 
the hole. Then he began to sing more 
loudly than before, 

“Chirp, chirp, sing and be gay ! 

Somewhere a cricket chirps every day.” 

The Child sat in the house in front of 
the fire. He wanted to go out and play, 
but his mother had said that he was not 
well enough yet. He was tired of his 
toys and wished for new ones. He did 
not see the wonderful pictures in the fire, 
for his eyes were full of tears. But sud- 
denly he heard the Crickel; who had come 
to live in the house, singing, 

“Chirp, chirp, sing and be gay! 

Somewhere a cricket chirps every day.” 

It made the Child laugh and sing to 
hear the cheerful old Cricket who could 
chirp in spite of the cold and his lame leg 
and the bad roads. 

And that was what the Cricket wanted 
in his old age, a waim place by the fire, 
and a Child to sing with him. 


THE FLOWER THAT THE KING LOVED 13 

III 

THE FLOWER THAT THE KING 
LOVED 

The aster grew by the side of the road 
and all summer long it did not blossom. 
Just a tall, ugly stalk of a stem it was, 
pushing up among the other pretty road- 
side flowers, and although it tried very 
hard and wanted to very much, it was not 
able to send out so much as a bud. 

A wild rose grew near it. Everyone 
loved the little pink rose very much. It 
budded and bloomed in fluttering blos- 
soms, and each danced about on its stem 
like a fairy in pink skirts. The butter- 
flies rested on the rose, and the bees kissed 
it, and the children touched it with their 
soft hands. 

“Oh, how wonderful to be a rose, so 
pretty and so much loved!” thought the 
aster. 

A pink clover grew, too, at the side of 
the road. It covered itself with dainty 
flowers and it made the air sweet with its 
perfume. The children loved the clover 


14 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

blossoms as much as they did the wild 
rose. On their way by with their mother 
they picked the flowers and made a nose- 
gay for her to wear. She said that the 
flowers made her very happy indeed. 
That made the clovers themselves happy, 
and they bloomed again and again. 

“How pleasant to be a pink clover, and 
make the air sweet and a mother happy!’’ 
thought the aster, but still it did not 
bloom. 

Once, as its tall, ugly stalk bent over 
the road, a passing wagon crushed it into 
the dust. 

“I will lie here always. I will not try 
to grow again,” the aster thought, but 
presently it felt something tugging at its 
roots as if its brave Mother Nature were 
saying, “Stand up like a soldier. Don’t 
lie there in the dusty road to be stepped 
on!” So the aster stood up, and with the 
days its broken stalk grew straight again. 

Then it came to be the fall of the year 
and the roadside grew brown and dingy. 
The children did not pass by as often as 


THE FI-OWER THAT THE KING LOVED 15 


they had before. The days were shorter 
and the nights were cool. 

‘‘Well, I must be off!” thought the wild 
rose. She spread her pretty pink skirts, 
and away she whirled on the wings of 
the wind that had just come by to take 
her. 

“We are very sleepy,” sighed the clov- 
ers, nodding their heavy heads, and then 
dropping down by the road for a winter’s 
nap. 

The roadside was dull and colorless 
now, except for the goldenrod that 
lighted its yellow candles here and there 
to show the birds their way south. 

“I must blossom. The road must be 
made pretty again,” thought the aster. 
With so much wishing and trying some 
little round buds came into sight upon the 
aster stalk. One day when the fall sun 
was bright and warm the buds opened 
into flowers. 

They were not fairy flowers like the 
wild roses, or sweet flowers like the clov- 
ers, but they made the road bright again 
with their blowing fringe and their purple 


16 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

color. They grew as high as they could 
on the stalk, and other purple aster 
blooms grew on other stalks up and down 
the road until the sides were covered as 
if with a purple cloak. 

That was how it looked the day that 
the King rode by. 

The King was tired of his gardens and 
tired of his conservatories. He said that 
he was tired of the color of red roses, and 
tired of the smell of carnations, and tired 
of the shape of rare orchids. 

‘T will go out into the country and find 
a new flower,” said the King. 

“But it is fall, your majesty,” said the 
court gardener. “No rare flowers bloom 
now in the country.” 

“We shall see,” said the King. So he 
rode along in his chariot with his trumpet- 
ers going ahead and his courtiers riding 
behind, but — all at once — he stopped. 

“There is a flower that is rare because 
it blooms in the fall,” said the King. 
“See it there by the roadside, so bright 
and so brave and of the royal color. It 
shall go home with me and be embroidered 


THE ACORN’S ADVENTURE 


17 


on my court robe and carved on the castle 
silver,” and the King tenderly picked the 
purple aster. 

IV 

THE ACORN’S ADVENTURE 

Once upon a time there was a great 
oak tree that had stood for many years 
in the forest. Its roots spread wide un- 
derneath the ground and its top stood 
high above the other trees. It could see 
the little winding rivers, the hills and the 
lanes for miles around. It could see, too, 
a white town that had been built at the 
foot of the hill since the oak tree had 
grown so wide and so high. It dreamed 
that one day it might go to the town and 
spread its leafy branches there to cover 
the children while they played. But the 
forest held the old oak tree fast and its 
dream never came true. 

One fall, when the oak tree was brown 
and thinking of the cold winter that 
would soon come, one of its little acorns 
decided to go upon a journey. A wander- 


18 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


ing breeze was in the oak tree’s branches 
at the time and it whispered a secret to 
the leaves, and the leaves whispered the 
secret to the acorn. Then the breeze 
tugged the little acorn away from the 
branch and went singing along beside it 
as it started away in its little brown cap. 

It had not gone very far when it met 
a squirrel, and the squirrel wanted to eat 
the acorn for his supper. But the little 
breeze hurried the acorn on, singing back 
to the squirrel as it went : 

“Wait till the others come pattering down, 
This little acorn is going to town.” 

Then the singing breeze and the acorn 
in its little brown cap went farther, and 
they came to the wood cutter’s boy at play 
on the edge of the forest. He wanted the 
acorn because he knew of a way to make 
an acorn into a top. But the little breeze 
hurried the acorn on, singing to the wood 
cutter’s boy as it went : 

“Wait till the others come pattering down, 
This little acorn is going to town.” 

Then the singing breeze and the acorn 
in its little brown cap went farther and 


THE ACORN’S ADVENTURE 


19 


farther, until they came to the farmer’s 
little girl playing in the lane very near 
the foot of the hill. She wanted the acorn 
because she knew of a way to make an 
acorn into a doll’s cup and saucer. But 
the little breeze hurried the acorn on, 
singing back to the farmer’s little girl as 
it went : 

“Wait till the others come pattering down, 
This little acorn is going to town.” 

So the breeze helped the acorn to escape 
from the squirrel and the wood cutter’s 
boy and the farmer’s little girl, and then 
they came to the town. It was full of 
pretty white houses and a white church 
and several stores. In the center was a 
square of green grass, but there were no 
trees. From the grass the children could 
see the old oak tree upon the top of the 
hill and they loved it and wished that it 
was theirs. The singing breeze and the 
acorn in its little brown cap went as far 
as the common, and they did not go any 
farther. The breeze sang the secret to 
the earth there, but no one else heard it. 

Then it was winter, and spring, and 


20 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


summer, and fall, and many other seasons 
came and went. One summer the old oak 
tree looked down the hill, wishing again 
that it might go to the town, and it sud- 
denly saw another oak tree waving its 
branches among the white houses. And 
the old oak tree knew that its dream had 
come true. It could not go to the town 
but its acorn had gone instead. That had 
been the secret. 

The acorn had grown into another oak 
tree. 


V 

THE SEA SHELL 

There was once a sea shell, as white as 
a cloud outside and as pink as a spray of 
coral inside; but this was not the most 
beautiful part about it. This sea shell 
could sing. 

It had lived in the sea for many years 
and was very happy there. The waves 
took it riding on their crests, and fish of 
many shining colors played around it. 
Dainty green water weeds made a garden 


THE SEA SHELL 


21 


for it, and, best of all, the sea shell had a 
pretty little sea creature, as tiny as a fairy, 
to hold. So the sea shell grew to want to 
sing for happiness. 

It learned a song that was partly the 
music of the waves, and partly the tune 
that the fishermen sang when they hauled 
in their full nets in the morning. And 
part of the song was made up of the 
merry voices of the children when they 
came down to the beach to dig in the sand. 
The sea shell held all this music, made 
into one of the most beautiful songs that 
ever was, and it decided to sing it some- 
time when the right day came. 

It must be a wonderful day, the sea 
shell thought, when it sang for the first 
time. It must be a blue day in the sky, 
and a gold day in the sun, and a smooth 
day on the sea; bluer, and brighter, and 
smoother than any day had ever been be- 
fore. Everyone would listen to the song, 
the fish, and the sea gulls swooping down 
on their great white wings, and the shell’s 
own little sea creature that it held so 
closely. So the shell waited, keeping its 


22 


THE OUTDOOR STORY ROOK 


song shut up inside it, and the summer 
went by. It was, all at once, the fall. 

There came, too, a storm upon the sea. 
The sky grew black. The waves lashed 
about the sea shell roughly and suddenly 
tossed it out of the water and upon the 
shore. Instead of the smooth, sandy 
beach, the shell found itself lying on a 
bare point of land where the lighthouse 
stood. There were no children at play 
here. The little sea creature that the shell 
had held so long was torn away from it 
by the storm. It lay alone and empty. 
What was the use of singing now, the sea 
shell thought, when it had lost its home, 
and its little sea creature? Indeed, it felt 
more like crying. But just then the sea 
shell felt itself lifted up from the rocks. 

“Father, look; see this pretty shell!” 
cried Pierre, the lighthouse keeper’s little 
boy. “The sea washed it up just for me, 
I think.” 

The lighthouse keeper smiled to see 
Pierre so happy. It was a lonely place 
for a little boy to be, there on the rocky 
point, with no other child near, and only 


THE SEA SHELL 


23 


the great lighthouse lamp to tend the year 
round. They were two lonely keepers of 
the light, Pierre and his father. But 
when a ship passed by in the night and 
saw the long bright rays of the lamp 
streaming out across the dark water, it 
could pass the dangerous rocks and go on 
safely to its harbor. 

Pierre held the little shell up high for 
his father to look at its colors, and the 
lighthouse keeper took it in his hands. 
Then he held it to the boy’s ear. 

“Listen!” he said. 

Should it sing, the shell thought? This 
was not the place or the occasion on which 
it had planned to sing its beautiful song. 
But the lighthouse keeper waited and 
Pierre waited, and all at once Pierre’s 
face was lighted with smiles. 

“It sings, father!” he cried. “It is sing- 
ing to me the prettiest music I ever 
heard!” 

And so it was. The shell sang to Pierre 
the music of the waves, and the tune the 
fishermen sang when they hauled in their 
full nets in the morning. It sang with 


24 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

the merry voices of the children when they 
come down to the beach in the summer to 
dig in the sand. And there was a new 
part to the song of the sea shell that made 
it the most beautiful music of all. 

It was the shell’s own sweet voice that 
could sing when it had lost its home, and 
the little sea creature which it had held so 
long. 


VI 

THE HARVEST 

It had been a sunny summer in the 
fields and in the orchards. There was so 
great a harvest that the farmers and the 
gardeners could scarcely gather it. 

“The village children shall help,” said 
the King. “I will declare a holiday and 
the children shall work at the harvesting 
all day long to see how much they can 
garner. When it comes evening I will 
walk out into the fields and see for my- 
self how industrious they have been.” 

Oh, it was a happy day for the children! 
The school books were laid away and the 


THE HARVEST 


25 


school doors were closed. The little girls 
put on their aprons and the little boys put 
on their overalls, and all the children car- 
ried baskets and bags. There was a re- 
port about that the King would choose 
the most industrious child to go back with 
him to the castle and learn how to tend 
the roses that grew in his conservatory. 
That would be a very pleasant thing to 
do, because the King’s rose room was a 
kind of fairy place, as sweet smelling as 
a dozen gardens, and full of red and pink 
and yellow and white roses that never 
stopped blooming. 

The children were all out the day of 
the harvesting: Halmar whose father had 
wide apple orchards, and Gerald whose 
father owned the vineyards, and Eliza- 
beth who lived on the edge of the wheat 
field. There was David, too, who lived 
in the little house at the end of the lane 
where there was very little growing in 
the garden. David was only a little boy 
and he lived with his Granny who was too 
old to do much planting. 

“David has no harvest, so he can help 


26 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


us/’ the other children cried the morning 
of the harvesting. “You must help us all 
you can, David, because each one of us 
wants to have the greatest harvest to show 
the King when he comes by at the end of 
the day.” 

And David, who was a kind little boy, 
said that he would help the others all that 
he could. 

“No one can pick apples as fast as I 
can,” shouted Halmar, climbing as 
nimbly as a squirrel up an apple tree. 
The branches were hung heavily with 
sweet apples so huge that Hahnar had to 
take two hands to hold one. Underneath 
the tree was a big basket. Halmar 
dropped an apple into it. 

“Oh, wait, Halmar,” said David, who 
was passing through the orchard. “You’ll 
bruise your apples. Toss them down to 
me, one at a time, and I will catch them 
and put them in the basket for you.” 

“That will be better,” said Halmar. 

So he dropped each apple, as yellow as 
a lump of gold, into David’s hands, and 
David put them, one at a time and very 


THE HARVEST 


27 


carefully, into the basket. By the middle 
of the morning the basket was piled high 
and not one apple had been bruised in 
David’s careful hands. 

Gerald was picking bunches of juicy 
purple gi’apes in the vineyard. 

“Wait a minute,” he called, as David 
passed on his way home from the orchard. 
“I can’t cut these bunches of grapes fast 
enough. If you will gather grapes, too, 
why I shall have twice as many at the end 
of the day. Will you, David?” 

“Why, yes,” said David reaching up to 
the vines and it happened that he was able 
to gather the grapes even faster than 
Gerald. By noon a basket of the purple 
bunches was full and running over. 

“Thank you, David. It’s too bad that 
you haven’t any grapes,” Gerald said. 
“Just look at Elizabeth in the wheat field. 
As soon as she gathers a few stalks of 
wheat she drops them.” 

“That is because she is trying to work 
too fast,” David said. “I’ll go over and 
help her.” 

So all the afternoon David helped 


28 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


Elizabeth tie together her sheaves of 
wheat. By the time that the sun began 
to drop low beyond the hills Elizabeth 
had a fine pile of wheat, the stalks neatly 
tied together. And David went home be- 
cause he had no harvest of his own to show. 

Then the King walked through the 
fields and the orchards to see how well the 
children had worked. They ran to meet 
him and he put his hands on their heads 
and told them that they had worked well. 

“These are fair apples,” the King said 
to Halmar. 

“Not one is broken,” Halmar said, “be- 
cause David caught each one as I dropped 
it.” 

“You gathered many bunches of 
grapes,” the King said to Gerald. 

“David helped me. He had no grapes 
of his own,” Gerald said. 

“How carefully you tied your wheat 
sheaves!” said the King to Elizabeth. 

“I can’t tie knots; David tied the 
sheaves for me,” said Elizabeth. 

Then the King passed on farther and 
he came to the little house at the end of 


THE RED LEAF’S MESSAGE 


29 


the lane where David lived. David was 
helping his Granny get supper, but when 
he saw the King he came out and bowed 
very low. 

“I have come to take you to the palace 
to tend my roses,” said the King, “and 
we will find a warm corner for your 
Granny there, too.” 

David’s eyes were bright with joy. 
“But I have no harvest,” he said. 

“Your harvest is greater than that of 
any of the other children,” the King an- 
swered, smiling. “You have gathered the 
fruits of unselfishness.” 


VII 

THE RED LEAF’S MESSAGE 

“Now we are all through; we are of 
no more use,” rustled the autumn leaves. 
They had dressed themselves in gold and 
scarlet and russet brown because the fall 
days had come. They liked the October 
sunshine and the crisp air, but they heard 
the wind. 


30 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

And as soon as the leaves had put on 
their autumn colors, puff, whirr, along 
came the wind and pulled them free from 
the branches where they had fluttered and 
grown all summer. 

“We are of no use to anyone now,” 
they said to each other as they floated like 
a bright cloud through the air. 

“Oh, yes, you are,” sighed the new leaf 
buds, hard little brown knobs on the twigs 
where the leaves had grown. “If you 
hadn’t gone we should have been uncom- 
fortable all winter with your stems push- 
ing so hard on our heads. Now we shall 
be able to sleep comfortably until spring.” 

But still the autumn leaves rustled to 
each other. 

“No one wants us down here in the 
road,” they said. 

“What beautiful red and yellow leaves; 
we have been waiting for you!” the chil- 
dren said, as they reached out their hands 
and caught as many of the leaves as they 
could. ‘We will make you into wreaths 
to wear when we play, and carry some of 


THE RED LEAF’S MESSAGE 


31 


you to school for the teacher to put on the 
wall over the blackboard,” they said. 

But the autumn leaves that were left 
blew to and fro as they went down the 
road and across to the field, still mourn- 
ing. 

“We are not needed here in the field,” 
they rustled. 

“Here are the leaves,” said the farmer, 
“just what my seeds and roots need to 
keep them warm until spring comes!” 

Then he gathered as many of the leaves 
as he could and spread them over the bare 
ground to keep the frost from going deep 
down into the earth. 

“These leaves will help my field to grow 
another year,” the farmer said. 

Now there were only a few of the au- 
tumn leaves and they flew through the air 
in the woods. They were the last leaves 
of all, left from the others, and they 
wanted to hide themselves in the woods 
where no one could see them. 

“We are of no use. No one needs us,” 
they rustled sadly to one another. 

But as soon as the bright leaves covered 


32 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


the ground in the woods they found that 
they had been expected. The wild violet 
wanted a covering of leaves to keep her 
warm imtil winter was over. The hare 
needed some leaves with which to line her 
shelter in the hollow oak tree. The squir- 
rel gathered as many leaves as he could to 
carpet his nest high up in the oak’s 
branches. At last there was only one lit- 
tle red leaf left. 

The wind took it and tossed it up in the 
air. Higher and higher went the red leaf 
like a bit of flame. It touched the tops of 
the trees and whirled over the houses, 
rustling wherever it went. 

“We were needed. Even dry leaves are 
needed. We were of use,” it sang. 

Listen! You can hear this autumn 
message of the little red leaf today, and 
every other fall day. 


THE DWARF IN THE CORNFIELD 


33 


VIII 

THE DWARF IN THE CORN- 
FIELD 

“Don’t go near him,” the mother field- 
mouse warned her young ones. “He is an 
ugly little ear of corn. His kernels have 
sharp points, and they will stick in your 
paws.” 

So the field-mice scm^ried across the 
field where the dwarf ear grew and gath- 
ered grain for the winter from the wheat 
stacks. 

“Why don’t you turn yellow?” chat- 
tered the chipmunk, as he stopped in the 
field by the dwarf ear of corn. “All the 
corn I ever knew turns yellow in the fall, 
and then I fill my cheeks with it and take 
it home to eat in the winter. I don’t be- 
lieve you are corn at all,” and the chip- 
munk scampered off to the woods. 

“How small you are! You don’t seem 
to grow,” rustled the pumpkin vines in 
the cornfield. “You have had plenty of 
time, quite as much as we have, and just 
look at the size of our pumpkins!” And 


34 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

with that the pumpkin vine trailed over 
to the fence to tell the farmer about the 
strange little dwarf ear of corn growing 
out in the cornfield. 

The dwarf ear looked off over the bare 
meadows and shivered as he wrapped his 
crackling husks closer around his sharp 
pointed kernels. He felt cold and hard, 
and he could see that the other corn had 
been cut and taken away to the barn. 
There was frost that night, and the next 
day the pumpkins were gathered and car- 
ried over to the bam, too. 

“It will be my turn next,” the dwarf 
corn thought. He had a merry heart 
hidden down under his sharp points, and 
he wanted very much to be taken to the 
barn and joke with the winter vegetables. 
He knew how to make a winter evening 
short and pleasant and sociable. 

But the dwarf ear was not gathered 
that day, or the next, or even the next. 
He stayed out in the cold cornfield until 
the ground was frozen stiff. Then the 
farmer cut him from his stalk and put him 
in a basket in the woodshed. There he 


THE DWARF IN THE CORNFIELD 


35 


stayed all winter, and all spring, and all 
summer, and until it was the next fall. 

The dwarf ear of corn had harder 
kernels and sharper points by that time 
than he had ever thought he could have. 
But all those seasons, as he shriveled and 
rattled around by himself in the basket in 
the woodshed, he kept his merry heart. 
And he knew that if he could only have a 
chance to spend an evening out in com- 
pany, he would be able to make it pass 
pleasantly for everyone. 

One afternoon, late in November, the 
farmer’s little boy came out to the wood- 
shed for a basket of chips. 

“Here I am, oh, here I am!” called the 
dwarf ear of corn in his dried-up voice, 
and the little boy’s eyes grew big as he 
picked up the ear. 

“Just what I wanted for tonight!” he 
said. “We’re going to have company.” 

So the dwarf ear of corn went into the 
farm kitchen, and was shelled, and put 
over the fire after supper. The kernels 
grew warmer and the company sat around 
the fire as if they expected something to 


36 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


happen. The kernels puffed, and swelled, 
and the dwarf ear of corn felt that his 
chance had come at last to show his merry 
heart. 

Pop, pop, every kernel of corn turned 
inside out with a jolly popping noise. 
They were as white as snow and many 
times as large as when they were shelled. 

The farmer’s little boy shook the 
kernels about and they hopped and 
danced as if they were alive. The com- 
pany, which was all made up of little boys 
and girls, clapped their hands and laughed 
to see the antics of the dwarf corn. Then 
they boiled a kettle of molasses and stirred 
in the fat white kernels and made balls to 
eat. 

They were popcorn balls, for the dwarf 
ear, in spite of being old and hard and full 
of sharp points, was popcorn! 


THE VINE THAT LOST HER BLOSSOMS 37 


IX 

THE VINE THAT LOST HER 
BLOSSOMS 

She was a slim, green little vine that 
never climbed, but kept close to the 
ground in the woods. She had no wish to 
be a flower vine and live in a garden, or 
a vegetable vine and live on a farm. She 
was perfectly contented to stay all smn- 
mer there in the woods, creeping along 
among the roots and mosses. 

No wonder the vine was happy. She 
had some wee blossom children, and they 
were twins! 

The violet had one beautiful purple 
blossom, and the honeysuckle had a red 
one. The Jack-in-the-Pulpit stood up 
straight among the ferns, but he was 
alone. The gentian had a flower that 
wore a very pretty blue dress, fringed, 
but there were no other twin blossoms in 
all the woods except those that grew on 
the gi’een little vine. 

They were just the same size, which was 
not very big, and each wore a pale pink 


38 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

dress. They were always very close to- 
gether, side by side, on the vine and the 
vine was so tender of them that she kept 
them almost covered up with her leaves 
and close to the earth. No one would 
have been able to find them if it had not 
been for their faint, sweet perfume. 

Every night the vine put her little twin 
blossoms to bed in a soft cradle of moss, 
and she washed their dresses every morn- 
ing in the dew. She sometimes thought, 
as she looked at her twin blossoms, so 
fresh and so pretty, how badly she would 
feel if she should ever lose them. 

And one day, after the vine had taken 
a little journey, just to stretch her ten- 
drils, and had come back, she found that 
what she feared had happened. Her twin 
blossoms, so sweet and so pretty in their 
pale pink dresses, were gone. Although 
the vine crept all around the place where 
they had grown, and reached her tendrils 
out for them for days, she never found 
them. 

The summer went, and it was fall and 
very cold in the woods. The vine thought 


THE VINE THAT LOST HER BLOSSOMS 39 

at first that she would turn brown 
and shrivel up as she saw the flowers and 
leaves all around her turning brown and 
shriveling. She didn’t very much care 
about living any longer now that she had 
no twin blossoms to put to bed and wash 
for. But the woods began to look so bare 
that the vine at last decided to stay green. 
She decided, too, that she would try and 
stay green all winter. 

So she started out, taking her trailing 
way as far as she could over the ground, 
and she found out that there was ever so 
much for her to do on the way. 

“Here comes the vine that lost her twin 
blossoms,” rustled the mosses. “Now she 
will have time to cover us up and keep us 
warm until this cold winter is over.” 

So the vine spread some of her leaves 
over the mosses and kept them wann. 

And she came to a hole in the earth 
where an old brown worm was burying 
himself. 

“Here comes the vine that lost her twin 
blossoms. Do cover up my hole,” said the 
worm in a hard, rattling voice. “I shall 


40 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


come out a gold and pui'ple moth for 
Easter, and I want to hide myself until 
then.” 

So the vine spread some more of her 
leaves over the hole in the earth where the 
worm lay. 

And just then a cold, beggar beetle 
crawled along. “Here comes the vine 
that lost her twin blossoms,” the beetle 
said in his clicking voice. “Do give me 
one of your green, juicy leaves to eat.” 

So the vine gave the beetle just one of 
her leaves, because she felt that one was 
all she could spare, and then she turned 
around and trailed back to the place 
where her twin blossoms had grown. 
Even though she had kept herself green 
and busy, the vine missed the blossoms; 
she could feel them still where she had 
held them. 

But, oh, what a surprise there was wait- 
ing for the vine! She found a pair of fat 
twin berries, close to each other, and 
growing side by side where the twin blos- 
soms had been! They were dressed 
warmly in red, and were the most cheerful 


THE BIRDS’ THANKSGIVING 


41 


little berries that a vine ever had. If any- 
thing could have been pleasanter than 
taking care of twin blossoms all summer, 
the vine thought, it was to take care of 
twin berries all winter. 

So everything turned out happily for 
the little vine that lost her blossoms, and 
she kept herself green and her twin ber- 
ries red all winter. 


X 

THE BIRDS’ THANKSGIVING 

"'Tweet, tweet, now we’re off,” sang the 
summer birds as they flocked above the 
pasture and the orchard, and in the shel- 
tered places in the woods, ready to go 
south. “Come along. Bob White,” they 
called to the quail who was walking about 
in the bare, frozen pastures. 

“No, Bob White can’t go,” the quail 
called back, too busy to look up at the 
bright little indigo birds and the wild 
canaries, and the others. Bob White was 
helping the farmer. Up and down the 


42 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

pasture he went, pecking and scratching 
the ground, as he ate the seeds of the 
weeds that were scattered there. The 
seeds wanted to plant themselves and 
spoil the farmer’s crop next spring, but 
Bob White was not going to let them. 
He was going to stay in the pasture all 
winter. 

''Tmtter, twitter, we are flying away 
from the cold. Come with us,” the sum- 
mer birds called to a fluffy little bird in 
a black cap who sat, all puffed out with 
the fall wind, on a limb of the apple tree. 

""Chich-a-dee-dee, not me,” sang the 
fluffy little bird in the black cap. Just 
then he hopped out to the end of the 
branch and ate up a fat insect that was 
about to sting the bark. The chickadee 
was helping the fruit man. Hopping 
from one tree to another he caught the 
grubs that would have kept the tree from 
bearing rosy red apples next season. The 
chickadee was going to stay in the orchard 
all winter. 

''Chirp, chirp, now we’re off for the 
south. Come with us ; the days are grow- 


THE BIRDS’ THANKSGIVING 43 

ing frosty,” called the summer birds to a 
larger bird in the woods who wore a red 
cap, and was running up and down the 
trunk of a pine tree. 

^^Rat-a-tat, IVe no time for that,” an- 
swered the woodpecker as he began ham- 
mering with his long sharp bill to make a 
hole in the trunk of the pine tree. The 
woodpecker had heard a boring worm who 
was busy spoiling the bark of a tree. He 
put his bill through the hole and caught 
the worm that would have spoiled the tree 
for the woodsman. The woodpecker was 
going to stay in the woods all winter. 

Then the summer birds flocked, and 
flew away, and built themselves new nests 
in the sunshine of the south. The leaves 
fell and the trees were bare. It grew late 
in the fall and the first snow storm covered 
the pasture and the orchard and the 
woods. 

Bob White hid under the shelter of the 
fence but his feet were cold and he was too 
stiff to run across the icy ground. The 
wind blew the chickadee so hard that he 
could scarcely keep his perch on the bare 


44 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

bough of the apple tree. The pine tree, 
deep in the woods, creaked and rocked in 
the storm and the woodpecker was not 
able to come out of his hole in the trunk 
to look for his dinner. 

But suddenly there were soft footsteps 
through the pasture, the orchard, and the 
woods. Who could be venturing out in 
such bitter weather, the winter birds won- 
dered? Then they braved the cold and 
peeped out at the white world. Oh, such 
a surprise as they found. The children 
had been there! 

In the corner of the pasture where a 
piece of the old stone wall sheltered it, the 
children had set up a little straw house 
for the quail. It was snug and warm, and 
there was plenty of corn inside. 

“Bob White’s all right,” sang the quail 
as he hopped inside. 

Nailed to the side of the apple tree was 
a little Thanksgiving dining table. It 
was a wooden shelf that the children had 
put there, spread with bread crumbs and 
bits of fat for the brave little bird who was 
helping to fill next year’s apple barrel. 


THE BIRDS’ THANKSGIVING 


45 


^^Chick-a-dee-dee, food for me, food for 
me!” sang the fluffy little chickadee as he 
hopped down to his dinner table. 

Hanging from a twig just outside of 
the woodpecker’s hole in the pine tree was 
a piece of suet. The children had hung 
it there as a Thanksgiving surprise for 
the bird who was saving wood to build 
houses and ships. 

^^Rat-a-tat-tat, I feel warm and fat!” 
said the woodpecker as he began his work 
again, taking pecks at the suet in between. 

And the wind blew, and there were 
many storms, but the winter birds were 
safe because the children had remembered 
them. 












WINTER 

























BUNNY’S WINTER SUIT 


49 


XI 

BUNNY’S WINTER SUIT 

There was a long line of her children, 
one day in the late fall, waiting outside 
the door of Mother Nature’s clothes-press 
in the woods. 

“Dear me!” old Mother Nature said as 
she unlocked the door of the clothes-press 
with a maple seed key and looked inside, 
“here you all are wanting something new 
to wear, every one of you. I do hope that 
I shall have enough to go round.” 

Such a funny family of children as it 
was, some with wings, and some with four 
legs, and some with no legs at all. There 
was the little leaf, first, that blew up close 
to Mother Nature’s apron and spoke to 
her before any of the others. 

“Please, may I have a pretty dress, be- 
cause I am going away?” rustled the little 
leaf. 

“Of com*se you shall,” said kind old 
Mother Nature as she took down a beauti- 
ful red dress and put it on the little leaf. 


50 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


‘‘I shall miss you very much, my dear, and 
I shall like to remember that you started 
off in a red frock,’’ and Mother Nature 
sighed, just a soft sigh, to see the red leaf 
blow off. 

“A red coat for me, please,” called Bob 
White, the quail, as he hopped up next. 

Mother Nature laughed. “How you 
would look in a red coat. Bob, working on 
the farm this winter. You know very 
well that your dark working suit is good 
enough. I shall give you some new down 
underwear to keep you warm, and — oh, 
don’t look so unhappy. Bob,” she added as 
she turned toward her clothes-press, “I 
have a surprise for you!” 

And Mother Nature gave Bob White 
a pair of new snow-shoes so that he could 
walk on the frozen crust of the meadows 
and not sink through into the snow! 

Fuzzy Caterpillar crawled up next, 
very slowly, because he was cold and stiff. 
He was too tired from the long journey 
he had taken to find her to ask his mother 
for a new suit. And Fuzzy Caterpillar 
certainly needed one, more than any of 


BUNNY’S WINTER SUIT 


51 


the others, for his coat had lost its fur and 
was worn through to the skin. 

“Go to sleep, Fuzzy, and don’t wake up 
until spring,” Mother Nature told hhn. 
“I am making you the most beautiful suit 
of all, but it will not be finished until the 
winter is over. It’s to be a surprise.” 

“Well, Bunny!” Mother Nature said 
then as she saw the little hare standing up 
on his back legs in his eagerness to be seen. 
“What can I do for you?” 

“I want a pair of green trousers and a 
yellow jacket and a red necktie,” said 
Bunny. “I have worn brown overalls all 
summer and I want to look stylish this 
winter when I go over to the barn for 
carrots.” 

Mother Natm’e did not say a word for 
a minute. She was too surprised to speak. 
And so Bunny said it all over again. 

“I want a pair of green trousers and a 
yellow jacket and a red necktie. I will 
have them!” he said, stamping his back 
feet. 

“Oh, Bunny!” his Mother Nature said 
then, “I never, never could let you have 


52 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

clothes like that to wear to the barn this 
^vinter. Just see, my dear, what a nice, 
warm, new suit I have made for you, 
though,” and she showed Bunny a little 
white fur overcoat and a pair of white fur 
overshoes and a pair of white fur mittens 
and a white fur cap with tWo long ears. 
Try them on and see how well they fit,” 
Mother Nature urged. “It is the only 
new suit you can have this winter,” she 
added very firmly. 

So Bunny put on his nice, warm, new 
suit and it fitted very well, but he was not 
satisfied with it. He did not say thank 
you for it and he started off for the barn 
stamping his little back feet as he went. 

The sky was full of clouds and snow 
began to fall. It covered the trees and 
the fences and the bushes and the groimd. 
The whole world was white as the little 
white hare hopped along in his new white 
suit. He reached the bam at last and 
helped himself to a carrot. It was crisp 
and juicy and he enjoyed it very much, 
holding it up in his white mittens and 
gnawing it. Then Bunny started out for 


THE EMPTY NEST 


53 


the woods again, but he was still cross. 
He thought how fine he would have 
looked hopping along the country road in 
green trousers and a yellow jacket and a 
red necktie. Bunny stamped his little 
back feet again in anger. 

Woof, woof. Oh, what was that! 
Bunny sat still at the side of the white 
road in terror. 

Woof, woof. It was louder and nearer 
now. Down the lane from the bam and 
along the road came Jack, the farm dog. 
He had heard Bunny and was out hunting 
for him 1 But J ack went right by the little 
wild hare without seeing him. Bunny was 
safe, because Mother Nature had given 
him a new winter suit to wear to the bam 
that was white, like the snow. 


XII 

THE EMPTY NEST 

The nest that the birds had left in the 
spruce tree on the edge of the woods was 
empty and alone. The cold wind blew it 


54 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

back and forth, and a few snowflakes 
drifted into it. Then the wind blew 
harder and the nest fell down to the 
ground at the roots of the tree. 

“Nothing but an old nest!” the children 
said to each other as they passed it on 
their way through the woods. “Now it is 
of no more use; it will fall to pieces. It is 
not woi-th taking home even.” 

Then the woods were very still and very 
cold, for the winter was come. 

When the children had passed, a wee 
little person, no larger than a fairy, came 
tripping softly over the snow to the roots 
of the spruce tree. She wore a warm gray 
velvet dress and bonnet, and her little 
black eyes shone brightly as she laid an 
ear of wheat down on the ground. She 
had been busy for many days doing her 
winter marketing. Tucked away out of 
sight among the roots of the spruce tree 
were many good things that this tiny gray 
housewife had brought home. There were 
some cherry pits and red and yellow 
kernels of com. There were acorns and 
beech nuts, and some hay to make a bed. 


THE EMPTY NEST 


55 


and some leaves and moss to make a bed- 
quilt. Everything was ready for the long 
winter days and nights when this tiny 
gray housewife would not be able to go 
away from home. 

But, oh, where was her home? She had 
not found one yet. 

All at once, though, she spied the birds’ 
nest lying empty and alone on the ground, 
but sheltered by the branches of the tree. 
First she ran all around it, and then she 
peeped inside it. She was so pleased that, 
she danced on the tips of her toes round 
and round in a circle in the snow. Then 
she spread the hay inside to be her bed 
and laid the leaves over it to make her 
bedquilt. She made little piles of nuts 
and grain in the nest where she could 
easily reach them if there came too frosty 
a morning for her to get up for breakfast. 
Last of all, this wee little person, no 
larger than a fairy, crept into the nest 
and snuggled down happily, for she had 
found a home at last. 

“Here’s the old birds’ nest still,” the 
children said when they went out to the 


56 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


woods to gather Christmas greens for 
making their home beautiful. “Isn’t it 
a pity that no one wants a nest after the 
birds have gone away? Let’s play ball 
with it.” 

“Oh, no!” whispered the littlest one as 
she bent down and peeped into the nest. 
“There’s somebody in it. Come and see!” 

So the children crept softly under the 
low hanging branches of the spruce tree 
and they, too, peeped inside the nest. 

“A little winter house!” they said, “so 
sheltered, and with a full pantry. Wlio 
do you suppose lives in this old nest?” 

“I do,” chirped Mrs. Field Mouse as 
she poked her head up out of bed and 
looked at the children. “And please don’t 
call it old. It’s my new house. I don’t 
know what I should have done this winter 
without it!” 


THE BEAVER’S OLD CLOTHES 57 

XIII 

WHY THE BEAVER WORE OLD 
CLOTHES 

The beaver had a broad, flat tail and 
very large hands. He dragged himself 
along close to the ground, and the outdoor 
creatiu*es who lived near him looked down 
upon him. 

‘T see you, I see you. How shabby 
your clothes are,” called the blue jay from 
a tree on the edge of the brook. 

But the beaver, who had on clothes for 
working, did not say a word. Instead, 
lie stood up on his hind legs and began 
sawing down the bluejay’s tree with his 
sharp teeth. Round and round the trunk 
he sawed, pulling out chips until the tree 
began to bend. 

“Dear me, I shall have to move,” 
scolded the blue jay, and he flew away 
just in time. Down fell the tree, and it 
lay across the brook from one bank to the 
other. 

“Follow me, follow me !” sang the little 
rippling brook to the beaver, “but of 


58 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

course you couldn’t ; you are too slow and 
clumsy,” she laughed as she trickled away 
over her stones. 

But the beaver, who had not finished his 
work, did not say a word. With his large, 
flat hands he put stakes in the mud of the 
stream at the back and in front of the tree- 
to hold it there. Then he dug up sod and 
mud, and plastered the chinks between 
the stakes. He had built himself a dam. 
The brook was obliged to stop running 
away and do something useful. She stood 
still and made a little lake for him, round 
and blue and shining. i 

‘How dirty your hands are,” cooed the 
dove who sat on her nest of sticks admir- 
ing her pretty pink feet. “Don’t come 
near me, whatever you do!” 

But the beaver, who knew that he could 
not keep his hands clean and do his work 
too, did not say a word. Using his broad 
flat tail for a paddle, he swam out to a 
little island in the middle of his lake and 
began building himself a house. 

Oh, it was a wonderful little house! 
The beaver made a circular mud wall 


THE BEAVER’S OLD CLOTHES 


59 


first, and then he put sticks in the top of 
the walls to be the rafters. Next, he 
climbed up on the walls and plastered 
mud over the rafters to be the roof. He 
left a httle hole in the tip-top of the roof 
to be the chimney. 

“There’s a fine fat beaver. I shall eat 
him some day this winter!” thought the 
wolverine who had sneaked down from 
the wooded hill and was watching the 
beaver from the bank. 

But the beaver knew what the wolverine 
had in his mind. He did not say a word, 
but he built no front door in his house. 
Instead he dug a hole in the middle of his 
floor, deep, deep, down into the lake. 
That was the way he went in and out of 
his house, by way of the cellar. 

The summer passed, and it was early 
fall. One day the beaver, in his old 
clothes, took a journey up the shore. He 
was gathering a bundle of twigs with his 
lai'ge hands when he met the squirrel. 

“What are you doing here in my 
woods?” chattered the red squirrel. 
“Why don’t you get yourself some new 


60 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


clothes when you leave the mud and come 
calling?” 

But the beaver, who was not calling 
on the red squirrel at all, gathered up 
his bundle of twigs and went back to his 
stream. He floated the twigs over his dam 
and fastened them under his house in the 
water. That finished his work for the 
season, and he was just in time. The first 
frost came. 

Now it was winter. The bank was 
white with snow, and the lake froze stiff 
and hard. The blue jay scolded and flew 
away. The dove mourned because the 
rough wind blew down her loosely-made 
nest and she, too, flew away. The wolver- 
ine grew very hungry. He came down 
again from the hill. Crossing the lake on 
the ice, he crept all around the little mud 
house on the island, but he could not get 
in. He did not know about the cellar. It 
would have done him no good if he had 
known, for he could not swim. The red 
squirrel scampered, chattering, to and fro 
over the snow, trying to find the holes 
where he had buried his nuts. He was a 


THE BEAVER’S OLD CLOTHES 


61 


careless little fellow and couldn’t remem- 
ber where he had dug in the fall. 

But the beaver was snug and comfort- 
able in his little mud house on the island. 
A number of other fat beavers were there 
with him, for company, and to keep each 
other warai. The harder it froze the more 
they liked it, for it shut up the cracks in 
the mud house and kept the heat in. 
When they were hungry, the beaver went 
down cellar and brought up some twigs, 
one for each. They held the twigs in their 
large hands and ate off the bark, enjoying 
it very much. 

There was no reason for looking down 
upon the beaver because of his old clothes 
and his muddy hands. Hardly any other 
creature had prepared for the winter as 
well as he. 


62 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


XIV 

THE WATER BEETLE’S 
SURPRISE 

The little water beetle was very well 
pleased with himself because he was so 
different from the rest of the beetle 
family. 

He had a pair of wings with which to 
fly through the air and paddle feet for 
swimming under the water. He had a 
black waterproof suit that was as strong 
and shining as a suit of armor. He had 
a little balloon full of sunlight that he 
carried with him when he went downstairs 
to bed at night in the bottom of the brook. 
Yes, the little water beetle went down- 
stairs to bed, and upstairs through the 
water to play in the morning. 

There were so many pleasant things for 
the little beetle to do, and he could do them 
so much better than the other beetles, or 
the grasshoppers, or the butterflies, that 
he grew prouder and prouder. 

He could fly from the brook to the bank 
on a chilly day when the grasshoppers 


THE WATER BEETLE’S SURPRISE 


63 


sat, stiff with cold, beside the road, not 
able to hop. He could dive head first 
down into the brook and win a race with 
the other water insects because of his 
paddle feet. He was the only beetle with 
a balloon full of sunshine. When he 
tipped up his wee heels and dove down 
into the brook, he carried the bubble of 
air, that made his balloon go, down with 
him. So he had it to go to bed by, and to 
bob about with among the water-weeds in 
the day-time. 

But the greatest fun of all for the little 
beetle was his whirligig game. He could 
spin round and round, just as if he were 
skating in circles, on the top of the water, 
for as long as he liked, without growing 
dizzy. 

“Look at the whirling beetle!” the bees 
hummed, and the crickets chirped, and the 
cicadas droned. “Is he not wonderful?” 

So the little water beetle himself 
thought, and it seemed to him that he was 
the most important one of them all, and 
that nothing unpleasant could ever hap- 
pen to him. 


64 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


Suimner was over at last, and all out- 
doors began getting ready for the winter. 
The willow sent her yellow leaves floating 
down to the brook. The chickadee found 
himself a snug hole in an old stump where 
he might be sheltered from the weather. 
A light snow fell, and in it could be seen 
tiny, hurried footprints where the wild 
rabbit, the field mouse, and the quail had 
gone by looking for food. 

“Decide now which you will use all 
winter, your wings or your feet,” the older 
water beetles advised the little one. “You 
may stay in a crack in the bank if you like 
and come out on a mild winter’s day, but 
you must decide soon if you will do that or 
stay down here in the mud.” 

This was a hard matter for the little 
water beetle to make up his mind about. 
All summer he had done just as he wanted 
to, without thinking. So he kept on play- 
ing his whirligig game every day, 
although there was no one left to watch 
him, not even a spider. 

“I shall be able to do just as I like, any- 
way,” he thought in his little whirligig 


OTTER WHO MADE THE BEST OF IT 65 


head. “What is the use of thinking about 
the winter?” 

It was late in the fall when the little 
water beetle went down to bed one night. 
He was just barely able to take down the 
last ray of the sunset with him in his bal- 
loon. He stayed in the water longer than 
usual in the morning because he was sure 
he could go up whenever he liked. At 
last he decided to start. 

“Here goes!” thought the water beetle, 
lifting his paddle feet for a leap to the top. 

Oh, how he bumped his head! The 
brook had a roof of ice that the frost had 
built there in the night. It had been de- 
cided for the little beetle what he was to 
do. He had to stay in bed all winter long. 


XV 

HOW THE OTTER MADE THE 
BEST OF IT 

The young otter looked with his sharp 
little eyes out of the hole in the hollow 
tree where he lived. All summer the 


66 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


swamp had been moist and warm, a 
pleasant place for an otter to live. Every 
morning he had gone ^fishing, over the 
mud of the swamp and as far as the pond. 
When he had caught a fish, he sat on the 
bank and ate it, all but its tail. 

Everything was quite different now, 
though. It was winter. The swamp 
looked like a huge pond itself, covered 
with ice and snow. A bleak wind blew 
through the bushes and made the otter 
wriggle his little nose as he sniffed it. He 
went in again and looked about his bare 
house in the hollow tree. He could not 
stock his pantry as the squirrels, the chip- 
munks, and the wild mice did with nuts 
and grain. His cupboard was empty, for 
the otter ate only fish. 

He went out into the swamp and looked 
at the ice. An old otter was passing by, 
dressed in a gray fur coat, and appearing 
to be in a great hurry. 

“Where are you going?” the young 
otter asked. 

“To find a fishing hole,” the old otter 
said, not stopping. “They may all be 


OTTER WHO MADE THE BEST OF IT 67 


frozen over if I wait for you, but come 
along after me.” 

The young otter watched until the old 
otter was quite out of sight. This was 
his first winter in the swamp and he had 
never been farther than the pond on its 
edge. But he grew so hungry by the next 
day that his gray jacket felt loose. 

‘T shall have to start out and look for 
a fishing hole,” the young otter decided. 

His little feet slipped and slid on the 
icy ground. There were many frozen 
bushes and old stumps in the way, and it 
was quite a long trip across the pond. 
When he reached it at last, very hungry, 
the young otter was disappointed. The 
pond was covered with thick ice. There 
was not a single fishing hole, or a single 
old otter in sight to direct him to one. 

The young otter felt like going home 
again, but his mother had brought him up 
to make the best of things and he thought 
of something to do. He remembered that 
a little brook emptied into the pond on 
the other side. Perhaps there would be a 
fishing hole in the brook, he thought. He 


68 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


ran a little way over the pond, as fast as 
he could, and then he lay down and slid 
on his stomach. Then he ran a little 
farther and lay down and slid again on his 
stomach. Before he knew it he had 
crossed the pond, and the snow birds 
crowded down to the bank to see him. 

‘‘What a funny little otter!” they 
chirped. They thought that he was slid- 
ing for fun. But when the young otter 
scrambled up the bank and ran along be- 
side the frozen brook, he could not find a 
single fishing hole. He was very much 
discouraged and very, very hungry. He 
felt as if he must turn back and go home, 
but he remembered that there was a small 
lake quite a bit farther along, and beyond 
the hill. So the young otter bravely 
scrambled up the hill and when he came 
to the top he lay down and slid on his 
stomach all the way down to the bottom of 
the hiU. 

“What a funny little otter!” thought a 
wild rabbit who came out of his hole in 
the side of a hill to see the sight. “He is 
probably getting ready to join a circus.” 


OTTER WHO MADE THE BEST OF IT 69 


But the otter did not hear. The hill 
was so long and icy and his stomach was 
so smooth that he slid on and on over the 
frozen pasture and did not stop until he 
come to the edge of the lake. There was 
a bunch of willow trees growing on the 
bank, and they leaned over and kept the 
water open for a little place. There was 
a hole in the ice large enough to fish 
through near the willow tree! 

It was a fine sheltered spot, and there 
were no other otters anywhere about to 
fish with him. The young otter sat on 
the edge of the fishing hole and watched 
and waited. When he saw a fish he 
dipped his paws down into the water and 
caught it. Then he ate it, all but its tail, 
which he laid neatly at one side of the 
hole, for his mother had taught him table 
manners. Then he caught and ate an- 
other fish, and before long he felt warm 
and his gray fur jacket was so tight that 
he wished he could unbutton it. When 
the young otter could eat no more, he 
started home, sliding most of the way. 

He did have an offer to join a circus 


70 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

that spring because everyone thought he 
could do tricks. But they didn’t know the 
otter’s greatest trick of all — ^making the 
best of things when he was hungry! 


XVI 

THE TRACKS IN THE SNOW 

Bunny Bobtail, the wild rabbit, and 
Benny, the farmer’s little boy, started out 
at just the same time one cold frosty win- 
ter’s day to do their marketing. 

“The barn lies in a straight line from 
my stump,” Bunny Bobtail thought in his 
wise little head. “The quickest way to 
get there and back is to go straight.” 
Then off started Bunny Bobtail from his 
winter home in the old hollow tree stump 
on the edge of the pasture. As he hopped 
along he made little footprints in the 
snow. There was one pair of long foot- 
prints in front that Bunny Bobtail’s long 
back feet made when he hopped. There 
was one pair of short footprints in the 
back that Bunny Bobtail’s front feet 


THE TRACKS IN THE SNOW 


71 


made when he got ready to hop. Funny 
little Bunny Bobtail, taking his hopping 
way to the barn ! 

There were several things that Bunny 
wanted to do before he reached the barn 
door. He wanted to stop in the pasture, 
stand up on his haunches, and nibble the 
bark from a green oak shoot that poked 
up through the snow. The cold air made 
him feel so frisky that he wanted to see 
if he could jump over some small bushes 
and caper about a little, but he did none 
of these things. He had wriggled his 
little nose as he thought about his errand. 

“Carrots and apples !” he said over and 
over to himself as he went straight on, 
and his little footprints in the snow made 
a straight line from the old stump to the 
barn. 

Bunny Bobtail went in through the 
crack under the bam door and across the 
floor to a basket of apples. By standing 
up he could reach and nibble one. Then 
he went to the vegetable bins and picked 
out a large, juicy carrot. Holding it in 
his mouth, for he had no market basket. 


72 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

Bunny Bobtail hopped out underneath 
the bam door again, and went back to the 
old hollow stump the way he had come. 

“Do go straight down to the village, 
Benny,” his mother told the little boy. 
“I need a pound of tea and a jug of 
molasses. If you come back soon I shall 
be able to make a ginger cake for supper.” 

So Benny put on his overshoes and his 
overcoat, his cap with the ear laps and his 
mittens, and took the market basket from 
behind the kitchen door. Then he started 
for the store. 

“I wonder if the ice on the pond will 
hold,” Benny thought, and he went down 
to see. 

‘T wonder if there are any wintergreen 
berries left in the pasture,” Benny said to 
himself, and he went down to see about 
that too. Then he spied some little tracks 
in the snow. There was one pair of long 
footprints in front, and one pair of short 
footprints at the back. 

“A wild rabbit!” Benny said to himself. 
“I will follow his tracks and see where 
they go.” 


THE BIRD WHO SANG THANK YOU 73 


So Benny followed Bunny Bobtail’s 
straight tracks that led to the barn, where 
he had done his marketing. Benny could 
be sure about that because he saw the 
nibbled apple. Then he saw that the 
tracks led back again through the snow, 
straight. 

“Oh, I must go down to the store for 
mother,” Benny said, but Bunny Bobtail, 
when he went out for a little run that 
night, laughed to himself. In the moon- 
light he saw the prints of Benny’s over- 
shoes in the snow, not in a straight line 
but circling the pond and zigzagging all 
over the pasture. 

“What a long way round that boy 
took!” Bunny Bobtail thought in his wise 
little head. 


XVII 

THE BIRD WHO SANG THANK 
YOU 

Grandfather found the bird one spring, 
fallen out of its nest and lying on the grass 
of the orchard. It was a young robin that 


74 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


had tried to fly too soon, and its wing was 
broken. 

“Poor bird!’’ Grandfather said. “Now 
there is no hope for it. The old robins 
will not be able to do anything for it.” 
He lifted it very gently and wrapped it 
up in his handkerchief. Then he laid it in 
his hat and took it to the bam. 

But the robin was strong and brave in 
spite of its broken wing. It fluttered 
about and tried to fly. Grandfather 
looked at its wing veiy thoughtfully. He 
went into the house and asked Grand- 
mother for some soft linen cloth. Then 
he tore the cloth into strips, and next he 
whittled a tiny splint from a piece of soft 
wood. He bound the robin’s broken wing 
with the soft cloth to the splint, and he 
fed the bird some of the fish woims that 
he had in a tin pail in the barn. 

The robin stayed quietly in a basket in 
the barn for some time. Grandfather fed 
it more worms and soft bread and water. 
At first he had to pry its bill open to feed 
it, but after a while the robin ate alone. 
Then Grandfather took off the bandages 


THE BIRD WHO SANG THANK YOU 75 


and the splint, and the broken wing was 
knitted. It dragged a little when the 
robin walked, but the bird could take 
short hopping flights. Grandfather was 
sure that the wing would grow stronger 
every day, and he expected that the robin 
would go away at once. But it stayed 
around the barn for two weeks more. 
Then one day it was gone. 

It was an open winter that year. The 
snow melted soon after it fell, and there 
were green patches on the hills as late as 
December. John and Emily came to 
spend a month with Grandfather and 
Grandmother, and they played out in 
front of the house under the big fir trees 
every day. 

Once John heard a rustling in the deep 
branches. 

‘Tt sounds like a bird,” John said. 

“Oh, it couldn’t be in the winter time,” 
Emily said. 

But both children heard a twittering 
the following day in one of the fir trees. 

“Come out and listen. Grandfather,” 
John and Emily called. So Grandfather 


76 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


went out, and he heard the same bird 
call. 

Cheer-up j Ckeer-ee. 

“It sounds like a robin!” Emily said. 

“Why, it is a robin; it is my robin!” 
Grandfather said as a bird with one wing 
that dragged a little bit flew out of the 
tree and over toward the woods. And 
when he told John and Emily about the 
robin, they were sure that it had stayed so 
late to come and sing thank you to Grand- 
father. 

It really seemed as if the robin were 
grateful to Grandfather, for it came back 
and nested in the orchard for three sea- 
sons after that. 


XVIII 

THE CHRISTMAS WREATH 

Everything in the woods was ready for 
Christmas. 

The little fir tree stood, straight and 
green, with its branching arms spread out. 
It could scarcely wait for the dolls, and 
the red drum, and the candy sticks that 


THE CHRISTMAS WREATH 


77 


it would hold when it went to the village. 
And it was even looking fonvard to hav- 
ing a Santa Claus figure on its very tip- 
top. 

The cold had hung long, silver chimes 
of icicles on all the bare trees in the woods 
that had lost their leaves and were not 
going to the village to be Christmas trees. 
Every time that the wind blew, the 
icicle chimes rang a tinkling Christmas 
tune. They would ring it on Christmas 
Eve when the star shone in the midnight 
sky. 

A few green shoots of young trees and 
bushes pushed their way up through the 
snow. They were there to give the hare 
a Christmas dinner of their juicy bark. 
There were red berries, too, for the win- 
ter birds, and some cones for the squir- 
rel. On Christmas morning the squirrel 
would sit up on the old stump, holding a 
cone in his paws, and take out the seeds 
to eat for his holiday breakfast. 

Way up in the top of a bare tree was a 
bunch of green leaves trimmed with tiny 
white balls, like fairy snowballs. That 


78 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

was the mistletoe, very proud indeed, for 
was it not going to a Christmas part}’’ to 
play with the children? And the holly 
tree was dressed in red and green, all 
ready to go to the party, too. 

All the woods expected to keep Christ- 
mas — all but the creeping pine. 

The creeping pine grew close to the 
earth in which its roots were set. It was 
slender and green and veiy beautiful but 
it could not stand up as the rest of the 
evergreens did. It tried to climb, but 
back it fell, always, to the ground again, 
and so it decided at last not to try to be 
a bush or a tree. It crept along the 
ground, green and curving, and spread- 
ing a lovely carpet over the bare earth 
wherever it went. But the autumn had 
covered the creeping pine with leaves, and 
now the winter had covered it with snow. 
It was buried deep, and although it was 
the most beautiful evergreen in the woods, 
no one had invited the creeping pine to 
keep Christmas. Deep do^wn, close to its 
mother earth, the creeping pine waited, 
with the roots of the violets and the may- 


THE CHRISTMAS WREATH 79 

flowers and all other lovely growing 
things that one must hunt for to find in 
the woods. 

The little fir tree was cut and went 
away merrily on a sledge. The runners 
of the sledge would have crushed the 
creeping pine if they could, but it hugged 
close to the earth and was safe. The 
mistletoe and holly were gathered, and 
di’agged in big bunches along the ground. 
The snowbirds chirped joyfully to see 
their feast of Christmas berries, and the 
cones clicked as the wind blew them 
toward the old stump where the squirrel 
would keep Christmas. 

Then it was the day before Christmas, 
and the woods heard footsteps in the 
creaking snow. 

‘T wonder if I shall be able to find any. 
Grandfather said that he wanted some 
very much indeed,” someone said. 

Everything in the woods became still, 
because a little boy had coime. He wore 
a red cap and muffler and mittens, and he 
had a basket on his arm. He went in and 
out among the trees, but looking down 


80 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


low as he went. At last he saw something 
green where the wind had blown the snow 
away, and he shouted with happiness. 
“Here it is!’’ he said. “Here is the creep- 
ing pine that my grandfather, the sexton, 
wants to make the Christmas wreath!” 

“Here I am, waiting. Oh, here I am!” 
the creeping pine would have said if it 
could, as the little boy pulled up the long 
evergreen vine and filled his basket with 
it. 

“The creeping pine has been asked to 
keep Christmas!” the chime of icicles rang 
out as the wind blew through the woods. 
“It has been favored above us all. It will 
be the Christmas wreath that hangs in the 
church door!” 


XIX 

THE SNOWMAN 

He wanted to be the very best Snow- 
man of the winter, straight and strong 
and frozen stiff, but Leonard and Lucy 
did not know that. They did not know 


THE SNOWMAN 


81 


what thoughts every Snowman has in his 
round, snowball head. 

It was a fine, frosty day in January 
that the children made the Snowman, but 
the sun was beginning to shine a little 
more warmly. 

“We will make the Snowman in this 
sunny corner of the garden,” Lucy said. 
“Then we can work on him without Jack 
Frost nipping our noses and fingers.” 

“All right, we will,” said Leonard, and 
he and Lucy went to work in the snow. 

Leonard made the Snowman’s legs of 
many small snowballs piled one on top of 
the other. Lucy helped him make the 
snowballs. Just as they were finishing 
the Snowman’s last leg, Lucy thought of 
something. 

“His legs might be stronger if we had 
put broomsticks inside,” she said. 

“Oh, we can’t make them all over 
again,” Leonard said. “I think they are 
strong enough.” 

Then, working together, they rolled a 
huge snowball for the Snowman’s body. 
It was so large that Leonard could hardly 


82 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

lift it and set it on top of the legs. As 
Lucy went into the house to get some 
coals for his eyes and his buttons, Leonard 
looked at the Snowman. 

“I wonder if his body is too heavy for 
his legs?” Leonard thought. “Well, I 
don’t want to bother to make another,” 
he said to himself. 

Then Lucy came out and they put in 
the coals for the Snowman’s eyes and 
buttons. They made his head, but Lucy 
set it crookedly on his body. 

“Oh, I meant to bring out a broom to 
be his gun. He could lean on it and it 
would help him to stand,” Lucy said. 

“Never mind that,” Leonard said. “I 
think he will stand without it, and it’s 
time for dinner now.” 

So they left the Snowman alone in the 
garden, very sorry for himself because he 
was such a poorly made Snowman. 
Almost at once he began to break up and 
to go to pieces. 

“There goes my poor head!” thought 
the Snowman as it rolled off. 

“And there go my poor legs!” thought 


THE BOY WHO FOUND THE STARS 


83 


the Snowinan as they doubled up under 
his heavy body. 

“Oh, I wish I could run away!’’ thought 
the Snowman. 

“Well, we can help you to do that,” 
laughed all the winter sunbeams that 
filled the corner of the garden where the 
Snowman lay. 

And that is how it happened that the 
Snowman ran away to the brook, and 
Leonard and Lucy never saw him again. 


XX 

THE LITTLE BOY WHO FOUND 
THE STARS 

Once upon a time there was a little boy 
who had almost everything that there was 
in the world to make him happy. He had 
a dear father and mother, and a great 
many toys, and a little white pussy cat, 
and a pleasant home, and a garden, and 
an apple tree. But still the little boy was 
not happy. Why do you suppose that 
was? 


84 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

This fixnny little boy was unhappy be- 
cause he wanted a star all for his very own 
selfish little self. 

He knew that the beautiful, shining 
stars belong up in the sky because that is 
their own proper place just as everything 
in the world has its own proper place. 
But when his mother had told him good 
night, and had put out the lamp, the little 
boy would look out of the window and up 
at the evening sky and he would say, over 
and over again: 

‘T want a star! Oh, I want a star! I 
will have a star!” 

And when it came morning the little 
boy remembered how he had wanted a star 
and couldn’t get one. His pleasant little 
face would be all puckered into an un- 
pleasant frown and his sweet little voice 
would sound like a growling bear instead 
of a bird’s song. 

One day when the winter was not quite 
over and the spring was not quite begun 
the little boy put on his coat and hat and 
started away from his home. He had 
made up his mind to go a long, long way 


THE BOY WHO FOUND THE STARS 85 


until he came to a place high enough for 
him to reach up when it came dark and 
pull down a star. 

“I shall come home with a star,” he said 
to his mother, “and then I can wear it in 
my cap and be a prince, and pin it on my 
coat and be a policeman.” 

“Very well,” said his mother, smiling, 
“but be sure to take your little white cat 
with you because she always knows the 
way home.” 

So the little boy started out with the 
white cat covered warmly inside his over- 
coat and only her two bright eyes peeping 
out. He went as fast as he could toward 
the east because that was where he had 
seen the sun climb up in the morning. 
He was sure that there must be a high 
enough hill there from which to reach a 
star. But he went and went and went, 
and he did not reach the hill. 

Then he met a little girl going to school 
with a big bag of books on her arm. She 
looked very wise indeed, so the little boy 
spoke to her. 

“I want a star to wear in my cap and be 


86 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

a prince, or to wear on my coat and be a 
policeman,” he said. ‘'Can you tell me of 
a place where I could get one?” he asked. 

The little girl looked at him in wonder 
and shook her head. 

‘T don’t know,” she replied. “But per- 
haps the schoolmaster can tell you. There 
he is coming down the street, just behind 
me.” 

So the little boy went up to the school- 
master who wore big bone spectacles and 
looked very wise indeed, and he spoke to 
him. 

“I want a star to wear in my cap and 
be a prince, or to wear in my coat and be 
a policeman,” he said. “Can you tell me 
of a place where I can get one?” he asked. 

The schoolmaster looked down at the 
little boy and then he smiled. “I don’t 
know,” he said. “I don’t know of any- 
one who could tell you unless it might be 
the minister whom you will meet if you 
walk along a little farther. He knows a 
great deal more than I do.” 

So the little boy went on farther and 
farther, although he was feeling very 


THE BOY WHO FOUND THE STARS 87 


tired and hungry now, and presently he 
came to the minister who was out, too, 
taking a walk. The minister’s hair was 
very, very gray and he looked wise indeed. 
The little boy spoke to him: 

‘T want a star to wear in my cap and 
be a prince, or to wear on my coat and be 
a policeman,” he said. “Can you tell me 
of a place where I can get one?” he asked. 

The minister looked down at the little 
boy, but he did not smile. ‘T don’t know,” 
he said. “But you might look at home,” 
he added as he patted the little boy’s head 
and passed on. 

The little boy knew that there were 
no stars at home, but he didn’t know 
where to find one, so he turned back. 
Oh, it was growing dark and the streets 
went in such a criss-cross way that the 
little boy could not tell which one was his 
street. He did not know the way home. 

Then he remembered what his mother 
had said and he took his little white cat 
out from inside his overcoat and set her 
down on the ground. She knew the way. 
Bounding ahead like a little white ball she 


88 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


led him up one street and down another 
until there he was at his own garden gate. 

It was snowing a little and the great, 
white flakes lay on the little boy’s coat. 
His mother met him at the door. 

“I am glad that you are home,” she said, 
“and did you find a star?” 

The little boy shook his head. Then 
he looked in his mother’s eyes. They were 
as bright as two stars, so full of their 
shining love for him. There at his feet 
was his little white cat, her eyes starry 
bright with the faithfulness that had led 
him home. 

“You have brought home a sky full of 
stars,” his mother said. 

Yes, it was quite true. On the little 
boy’s cap were enough snow stars to make 
him a prince, and there were enough on 
his coat to make him a policeman. 


SPRING 


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SNOWFLAKE AND SNOWDROP 


91 


XXI 

THE SNOWFLAKE AND THE 
SNOWDROP 

There was once a fleecy white cloud 
way up in the sky that hung over the earth 
and the children. The children had seen 
it and they thought that the cloud was 
beautiful enough to hold a snowflake. 
One day they called up to it, and they said, 

“Oh, white cloud, will you not send 
down a snowflake to us to stay on the 
earth always?” 

But the cloud could not. 

So the children spoke to the cold, and 
they said, “Oh, cold, will you not help the 
white cloud to send down a snowflake? 
We want one to fall, and stay on the earth 
with us always.” 

But the cold could not. 

So the children spoke to the wind, and 
they said, “Oh, wind, will you help the 
cold to send us a snowflake from the white 
cloud? We want one to fall, and stay on 
the earth with us always.” 


92 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


But the wind could not. 

So the children called to the sun, and 
they said, 

“Oh, sun, will you help the wind and 
the cold to send us a snowflake from the 
white cloud? We want one to fall, and 
stay with us always.” 

And the sun, who is able to do very 
wonderful things, shone down on the 
wintry earth to tell the children that it 
would try to make a snowflake live always 
for them. 

Then the cold touched the white cloud 
until from the cloud’s white edge there 
fell a snowflake, as white as the cloud 
itself and as beautiful as a star. The 
wind blew the snowflake from the white 
cloud softly through the air. The wind 
carried it until it lay on the earth where 
all the children could see it. 

“How white! How like a star our 
snowflake is!” the children said as they 
looked at it, but then they felt sorrowful, 
for the winter was almost over and the 
earth was warm where their snowflake lay. 

“Our snowflake cannot stay on the 


SNOWFLAKE AND SNOWDROP 


93 


earth with us always,’’ they said as they 
left it. “Tomorrow when we come back it 
will be gone.” 

Then the sun shone upon the snowflake 
and turned it to a di’op of crystal water. 
The drop of water trickled deep down 
into the earth, and there it gave itself to 
a thirsty little bulb that had been waiting 
for it all winter long. 

\\'’hen the winter was over the children 
came again to see the place where their 
snowflake had fallen. “It was so pretty,” 
they said, “with its white points. Now we 
shall never see it again.” 

But when they came to the spot where 
the snowflake had lain, they found it. 
There it was, as white as a cloud, and as 
beautiful in form as a star. 

“A snowdrop! The first snowdi’op!” 
the children shouted. “Our snowflake has 
turned into a flower and will stay on the 
earth with us always.” 


94 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


XXII 

SPRING AND THE CHRISTMAS 
TREE 

Everyone had forgotten about the 
Christmas tree. The colored balls and 
the silver cobwebs and the golden stars 
that had trimmed it were all packed away 
in a box in the attic for next year. Its 
candies were eaten and the children were 
no longer singing Christmas carols. 
They were thinking about spring and 
planning their garden. 

The Christmas tree lay in a field back 
of the garden and it was very old and 
brown and dry. It had been put there 
the week after Christmas and there it had 
lain, until the snow which had fallen on it 
had melted and left it uncovered and ugly. 

“We ought to chop up the old Christ- 
mas tree; it is in the way here,’’ James 
said, as he noticed it one morning in 
spring. 

“Oh, yes,” said Janet, “and then we 
could have a great bonfire and bum it.” 

“That is what we will do,” said James. 


THE WORM THAT WAITED 


95 


He brought his hatchet and the two 
children went over to the Christmas tree. 
James raised his hatchet, but Janet 
touched his arm. 

“Don’t, James!” she said. “Look! the 
Christmas tree is trimmed again!” 

It was quite true. The rains had 
watered the groimd where it lay and the 
sun had warmed it. Up from the earth 
had sprung the yellow dandelions. They 
shone among its branches where it lay 
there on the ground as gold stars had 
shone on it at Christmas time. 

The children clapped their hands. 

“Oh, how beautiful! We could not 
burn the Christmas tree,” they said. 
“The spring has made it pretty for us 
again.” 


XXIII 

THE WORM THAT WAITED 

The worm was cold and ugly and gray. 
It crawled slowly across the bare ground 
of the garden where Frances was planting 
the bulb. 


96 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

The bulb, too, was cold and ugly and 
gray. Frances turned it over and over 
in her hand before she put it in the hole in 
the earth. 

‘T don’t see how it can be true,” she 
said to herself. ‘T don’t see how it could 
possibly happen. And it will be such a 
very long while to wait. Do you believe 
it?” She spoke to the worm, but the 
worm had not a word to say in reply. 
The worm was thinking, though. 

'T don’t see how it can be true,” was 
what the woTm was thinking. ‘T don’t 
understand how it could possibly be true. 
It will be such a very long time, but I will 
wait.” And with that the worm took its 
slow, creeping way across the garden to a 
bush near by. It was so ugly that no one 
paid any attention to it. , No one took 
even the pains to step on it. 

Frances put the bulb in its hole in the 
ground and covered it carefully with 
earth. When she came out a few days 
later to see if anything had happened to 
the bulb, nothing was to be seen. It was 
covered more deeply than ever now, for 


THE WORM THAT WAITED 97 

the red and yellow leaves had spread 
themselves over it. The worm, wrapped 
in a gray blanket, hung from the bush 
near by, waiting. 

‘T’m sure that such an ugly gray thing 
as this will always stay ugly,” Frances 
said, looking down at the spot where she 
had planted the bulb. 

‘T’m sure,” thought the worm, swing- 
ing in the cold wind, “that such an ugly 
gray thing as I will always stay ugly, but 
I shall wait and see.” 

The chrysanthemums in the house 
blossomed soon. The yellow ones were 
like great gold balls, and the white ones 
looked like snowballs. Frances watered 
them, and set them in the sunshine. At 
Thanksgiving time she cut the chrysan- 
themums. There Were enough to fill a 
great bowl in the center of the table, and 
to put in .the vase in grandmother’s room. 

The day after Thanksgiving Frances 
went out into the garden and to the place 
where she had buried the gray bulb. She 
could not see it. The leaves that had been 


98 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

SO pretty, all red and yellow, were turned 
to brown. 

‘‘What’s the use of waiting for it?” 
Frances said. 

The worm was so shriveled and 
shrunken now that he rattled around in 
his blanket, but the wind carried some of 
Frances’ words to him. 

“The use of waiting! The use of wait- 
ing!” was what the wind said to the worm. 

Then the Christmas rose in the house 
sent out a bud. Frances set it in the 
sunniest window of all, and the bud 
opened into a lovely red rose. Frances 
put the Christmas rose in mother’s room. 
It was a beautiful, blossoming plant when 
the earth outside was bare. On Christ- 
mas afternoon Frances put on her hood 
and her fur coat, and she went out to the 
garden to the place where the bulb was. 
It lay deep under the snow. 

“It never can live now,” she said. 

The bush where the worm hung, as 
dried and small as a seed now in his gray 
blanket, was covered with ice. The icicles 
rattled about and cut him like little knives. 


THE WORM THAT WAITED 99 

But they played a kind of tune, too, as 
they struck each other, repeating Frances’ 
words. 

“Live!” was what they said to the 
patient worm. 

Then the winter was over, and it was 
Easter time. Everywhere there was 
green, in the fields, and on the trees, and 
in the gardens. The brook woke up and 
sang an Easter carol, and the robin began 
a new nest in the apple tree. Frances had 
forgotten all about her bulb in the garden, 
but she went outdoors and stood in the 
garden path because everything was so 
pretty once more. 

Down through the Easter sunshine 
fluttered a beautiful moth. Its wings 
were like jewels, blue and green and 
crimson set in gold. It flew in front of 
Franees, and then it went on ahead. She 
laughed and clapped her hands as she ran, 
too, following it. 

On and on flew the moth until it 
stopped over the place where the bulb lay. 

Oh, how wonderful! The bulb had 
lived all through the winter, and now it 


. 100 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

had sent up its long green leaves. There 
was a flower, too, a gold cup to hold the 
sunshine, standing straight and tall on its 
long green stem. 

“It was a very long while to wait, but 
how pretty it is now!” Frances said. 
Then she looked up at the bush where the 
patient worm had hung all winter in his 
gray blanket. But he was no longer there. 
His gray blanket was torn and empty. It 
had been the ugly gray worm, changed 
now to the beautiful moth, that had flown 
down to the garden. 


XXIV 

THE BLUEBIRDS’ NEW HOUSE 

‘T wonder if we are too early,” twit- 
tered Mr. Bluebird to Mrs. Bluebird. 
“The sun is warm, and the sky is blue, 
but there seem to be very few leaves as 
yet on the trees.” 

“That is what I noticed,” sang Mrs. 
Bluebird to her mate as they flew from 
one orchard to another, each stroke of 


THE BLUEBIRDS’ NEW HOUSE 


101 


their wings carrying them farther away 
from the south and their orange grove. 
“I have been wondering, too, what we 
shall be able to find for our nest building. 
The grasses are not dry yet and the sheep 
have not left any of their wool for us on 
the bushes.” 

“Suppose the children see us in the 
trees,” chirped Mr. Bluebird. “I have 
known children who were not kind to 
birds.” 

The two flew along without singing for 
a while. Then they both burst into sing- 
ing together. 

“See what we have found!” they twit- 
tered. 

It was a little green house nailed to the 
trunk of the old apple tree where they 
had built their nest last year. It had a 
pointed roof to shed the rain, and a little 
round door, only large enough for a blue- 
bird and no larger. It was all ready for 
their bird housekeeping, even to some 
seeds and crumbs and suet spread out on 
the tiny front porch. 


102 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


‘'Our house for the season 1’’ sang Mr. 
Bluebird. 

“The children must have made it for 
us/’ twittered Mrs. Bluebird. 

“How kind children can be!” sang both 
the Bluebirds together. 


XXV 

WHAT HAPPENED TO PIPER 
FROG 

Piper Frog came out of his egg in the 
bottom of a cold mud puddle very, very 
early in the spring. 

Hardly anyone knew that it was 
spring, for there were still patches of 
snow in the woods and the nights were 
frosty. Piper Frog knew, though. He 
had come out of his egg thinking about 
spring and he wanted, oh, how very much 
Piper Frog did want to get up out of the 
mud puddle and play a spring song on his 
pipes ! 

The young pollywogs and the beetles 
and the old frogs that were all quite con- 


WHAT HAPPENED TO PIPER FROG 103 


tented to stay down in the puddle until it 
should be warm enough for them to go to 
the top, warned him. 

“Look at your weak legs!” they said to 
Piper Frog. “They will never take you 
very far up.” 

“Remember that you are the smallest 
of all the frogs,” croaked a grandfather 
bullfrog to Piper. “There’s no knowing 
what might happen to you up on the bank 
of this puddle.” 

Piper Frog listened to them and he 
knew that what they said was true, but he 
felt that he must start. The violets might 
come up, and the flag turn green, and the 
willow send out new leaves if they heard 
him and knew that it was spring. So 
Piper made ready for a great jump and 
got part way up the side of the mud pud- 
dle, piping all the way. 

He was such a little frog that he stuck 
there, and it seemed as if he would never 
be able to pull his legs out of the mud. 
He was obliged to stay in the mud several 
days, but at last he pulled his little green 
legs out and jumped again, piping as he 


104 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


went. This time Piper Frog was at the 
top of the puddle. 

Something very dreadful happened to 
him then, though. It was still so cold that 
there was ice every night on the water of 
the mud puddle. It froze Piper Frog’s 
legs in, and there he had to stay for several 
more days. 

But one morning the sun shone very 
brightly on the earth, melting the ice, and 
Piper was able to pull his stiff legs out. 
He was cold and weak, but he did not 
forget for a moment why he was hopping. 
He gave a very brave leap and was out of 
the mud puddle and on the earth. 

“Now I will play my pipes as loudly as 
I can,” he thought, as he sat up and 
looked all around him. But, oh, what was 
that which Piper Frog saw? Over the 
wet leaves and the moss of the woods 
crawled a long snake. It was coming 
directly toward the little frog to eat him 
up! 

“I must get away. I mustn’t be eaten 
before I get a chance to play my pipes,” 
Piper Frog thought, and using all the 


WHAT HAPPENED TO PIPER FROG 105 

strength he had, he jumped higher than 
he had ever jumped before. He did not 
know^ that he could go so far. 

Then the woods and the meadows heard 
a pretty little tune that seemed to come 
from a tree, but it wasn’t a bird’s tune. 
It was not yet time for the birds to come. 
The music was faint at first, and then it 
was clear and high. 

“Spring’s come!” it told the violets 
and the wild flag and the willow. It 
was Piper Frog playing his spring 
song. 

He was playing his pipes up in a tree! 
That was where Piper Frog, the smallest 
frog of all and hatched in a mud puddle, 
had got to with his last jump. He stayed 
in the tree all spring, piping so beauti- 
fully that everyone stopped to listen to 
him. Whenever Piper Frog felt like it, 
he pulled off his suit and ate it. He 
always found that he had another suit, 
just as green, and just as beautifully em- 
broidered underneath. 

And with the days, he added a little 
more to his spring song. 


106 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


“Spring’s come! Spring’s come! 
Don’t stay in a mud puddle; get up 
higher!” Piper Frog piped. 

XXVI 

ROY’S SURPRISES 

Roy was helping Grandmother to get 
the garden ready in the spring. There 
was a good deal to do, and Grandmother 
said that he was ahnost as much help as a 
gardener. 

They worked every morning right after 
breakfast in the spring sunshine until 
dinner time, and something new and ex- 
citing happened each day. 

“We must rake the leaves off the flower 
beds,” Grandmother said. “Pile them in 
your cart, Roy, and dump them back of 
the shed.” 

So Roy raked the leaves away, and un- 
derneath them he ,found some sm’prise 
buds of yellow and purple crocuses just 
ready to open, and the gold daffodils 
pushing their way up through the ground. 

“Today we must tie up the piazza 


ROY’S SURPRISES 


107 


dnes,’’ Grandmother said to Roy after 
the flower beds were raked and tidied. 

So she held the shears and the string, 
and Roy climbed up on the stepladder to 
tie the vines that were breaking into 
leaves just where she showed him that 
they needed it. She cut the soft string 
into pieces, and Roy laid it on the top of 
the stepladder ready to use. 

Roy!” Grandmother suddenly 
warned the little boy. He kept very still 
and there was a rush of wings close to him. 
Down flew a bird and, gathering up some 
of the string in her bill, she flew away. 

“She must be nesting,” Grandmother 
said. 

The next day Roy and Grandmother 
took a walk to the woods to get some 
young ferns to set out in the shady spot 
by the front stoop. Roy carried a basket 
and a spade and when they came to the 
place where beautiful new maidenhair 
ferns grew beside the edge of the brook, 
he dug some up and put them in the 
basket. 

“Put plenty of the woods earth and old 


108 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


leaves in with the roots,” Grandmother 
said. So Roy lifted each fern, just as it 
grew in the earth, with rich leaf loam all 
about it. 

They were just starting home when 
something stirred in the basket. What 
had seemed only a bunch of old gray 
leaves clinging to a twig unfolded, and 
out came a fluttering, many-colored but- 
terfly. She tried her wings for a second, 
like a fairy, and then she flew up, and 
into the warm sunlight. The leaves had 
held the cocoon in which she had slept 
until spring. 

Before they knew it, the last day in the 
garden came, for Roy was going away 
and home to the city. 

“We will pot the pink and red gera- 
niums that have been hanging in the 
cellar all winter, resting,” Grandmother 
said. “There are some flower pots lying 
over there in that sunny corner and the 
earth is rich enough, too, there to All 
them.” 

Then Grandmother went down cellar 
and came back with a very large geranium 


ROY’S SURPRISES 


109 


in her arms. It had already begun to send 
out new leaves. 

“It is the Martha Washington gera- 
nium,” she said. “I think we will need 
one of those large pots for it, Roy.” 

So Roy dug up some of the earth, and 
then started to lift up a large red flower 
pot. Then he jumped, and put it down 
again. 

“There’s something underneath,” he 
said. 

There was a broken place in the edge 
of the pot and they saw a little green head 
and two round black eyes at the hole. 
Grandmother laughed. 

“That’s a toad, Roy,” she said. “Leave 
his house there; we will use one of the 
other pots for the Martha Washington 
geranium. He will probably live there 
all summer and I want him to be as com- 
fortable as he can. He’s my little gar- 
dener come to take your place. He will 
keep the garden free of insects that would 
hurt the plants.” 

Roy knelt down and peeped beneath 


110 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


the pot at the toad, who blinked back at 
him. 

“Isn’t the spring full of surprises?” he 
said. 

“Yes,” Grandmother said, “and right 
under our noses, too!” 


XXVII 

THE LITTLE GOLD COCK WHO 
COULD NOT LIE 

Gasper could see the little gold cock 
from his home quite plainly. It was the 
weathercock on the top of the white 
church steeple. It moved as if it were 
alive, and when Gasper looked up at it 
and waved his hand and called, 

“Good morning, little gold clock; 
which way is the wind today?” as if it 
had understood him, the cock would whirl 
itself about and point the way that the 
wind was blowing. The little gold cock 
never crowed, like the cocks in the barn- 
yard, but it knew a song that was all its 
own. 


THE LITTLE GOLD COCK 


111 


“The north wind blows north, 

The west wind blows west, 

The south wind blows south. 

Truth’s best; truth’s best. 

“The east wind blows east. 

The west wind blows west. 

The south wind blows south. 

Truth’s best; truth’s best.’’ 

No one had ever heard the little gold 
cock sing its song. It had learned it, 
years before, when it had been a very 
young weathercock and had wanted to 
turn as it pleased, not as the winds told it. 
But that was all over now. The cock 
found it much pleasanter to whirl about 
with the wind. It never knew which wind 
would come first or how quickly. 

Oh, it was fine, the little gold weather- 
cock found, to be as quick as the wind and 
tell which way it was blowing. 

One day Gasper thought that he would 
like to fly his kite for a while before he 
went to school. It was a new kite, made 
in the shape of a bird with wide wings. 
It could fly, too, almost as high as a bird. 
Gasper unwound the string and ran along 
the street with the kite sailing so high 


112 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


above his head. Higher and higher went 
the kite, and farther and farther ran 
Gasper. Now the kite was almost as high 
as the little gold cock on the top of the 
steeple, but suddenly Gasper heard a bell. 
It was the last school bell. He was late. 

Gasper pulled in his kite. 

“I will tell the teacher that I am late 
because I had to do an errand for my 
mother,” he said. 

But the wind, tugging at the kite, 
brought a message from the little gold 
cock down to Gasper. 

“The north wind blows north. 

The west wind blows west, 

The south wind blows south. 

Truth’s best ; truth’s best,” 

said the weathercock. 

Gasper looked up at the little gold 
weathercock. It was pointing due north, 
for the wind was north. 

“I must tell my teacher that I am late 
because I played too long,” Gasper said. 

He did, and his teacher said that it was 
wrong to be late, but fine to tell the truth 
about it. 


THE LITTLE GOLD COCK 


113 


The wind, from some corner or other, 
was out every day. One Saturday Gasper 
thought how pleasant it would be to sail 
a toy boat in the pond. When he went 
down to the pond, there was Hugo’s toy 
boat tied to a bush at the edge of the pond. 

It was the best boat in the village. It 
was large, and was painted green, and it 
had wide, white sails. Hugo was not 
there, but Gasper untied the boat. The 
wind filled the sails, and the boat started 
across the pond. Gasper held the string 
in his hand, but the boat pulled so hard 
that at last he dropped the string. On 
and on and farther and farther sailed the 
boat. Now it reached the other side of 
the pond where the water went down in 
a waterfall. Down, too, went Hugo’s 
boat until it was out of sight. 

“What shall I do?” Gasper said to him- 
self. “I think I will tell Hugo that the 
string was loose and the boat sailed away 
by itself.” 

But just then the wind that had carried 
away the little boat brought Gasper a 
message from the gold cock. 


114 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


“The east wind blows east, 

The west wind blows west. 

The north wind blows north, 

Truth’s best; truth’s best.” 

was what the weathercock said. 

Gasper looked up at the little gold cock. 
It was pointing due east for the wind was 
blowing from the east. 

“I must take all the money out of my 
bank,” Gasper said, ‘‘and buy Hugo a 
new boat, just as large, and painted green, 
and with just as wide sails.” 

So he did, and Hugo said that they 
would play with it together. 

The two little boys were sailing the 
boat one day when Hugo looked up at 
the little gold cock on the top of the 
church steeple. 

“We have a little rooster that can 
talk,” he said. “He tells us when it is 
time to get up in the morning.” 

“The rooster on the steeple can talk, 
too,” Gasper said, proudly. “It tells 
which way the wind blows, and it always 
tells the truth.” 


THE SNAIL 


115 


XXVIII 
THE SNAIL 

The snail crawled along slo^vly, for he 
carried his house on his back. He had 
carried his house about with him night 
and day, and winter and summer, ever 
since he had lived in the garden. 

There was no way of getting rid of it, 
even if he had wished to. But by this 
time he did not feel it as heavily as he 
had at first. When the road was clear, 
he often tried to hurry a little. 

Here was a large ant-hill, though. 
The snail could not climb over it, so he 
had to take a long way around. And just 
the other side of the ant-hill was a deep 
rut in the road. The snail was obliged to 
crawl down one side of the rut and then 
climb slowly up the other side. It was 
as far for him as it would have been for 
Gerald to go down in a valley and climb 
to the top of a hill. 

Gerald came down the road now with 
a basket of good things that his mother 
had asked him to take to his grandmother. 


116 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


There was a roll of flannel and there was 
yarn for her knitting. There were gro- 
ceries and fruit and a new book. How 
pleased grandmother would bel But 
Gerald set the basket down in the road. 

“It’s too heavy,” he said. “I can’t 
carry it any farther.” 

Along crawled the snail. There was 
Gerald’s basket in his way, and it looked 
as wide to him as a mountain would look 
to us. That made no difference, though, 
to the snail. He started to take his long 
way around it. 

“Whyl there is a snail,” Gerald said. 
“He has to carry his house about with him 
all the time.” 

Then Gerald picked up his basket and 
went on, for it did not seem nearly so 
heavy. 


XXIX 
THE ANTS 

There was a great deal for Polly and 
Peter to do now that the spring had come. 
It was hard to decide what to play first. 


THE ANTS 


117 


Polly had a new juinping rope. It 
was a white jumping rope, with red and 
yellow wooden handles. It was very long 
indeed, almost too long for Polly to use, 
but she said as she took it out in the 
garden : 

“This is my new jumping rope! 
Mother bought it just for me.’’ 

“Well, I don’t want it,” Peter laughed, 
as he emptied his new bag of marbles 
upon the garden path. They were very 
pretty marbles indeed, some brown, and 
some colored glass, some as clear as crys- 
tals, and some marked with stripes of 
blue and red. 

“These are my marbles,” Peter said. 
“Father bought them just for me.” 

Then Peter made a ring in the path 
and put all the marbles but one in the 
center, and rolled that one to try and hit 
the others. It was fim, but not as much 
fun as if there had been another boy to 
roll another marble with Peter, in turn. 
Then they could have counted to see 
which one had sent the most marbles out 
of the ring. 


118 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


Polly tried to jump with her new 
jumping rope. She tripped in it on the 
garden path and so she wound it around 
the handles to make it shorter. But the 
rope unwound itself and this time Polly 
fell down and bumped her knee on a stone. 

“I don’t know what is the matter with 
this rope,” she said, as she picked herself 
up. “I can’t seem to jump with it at all.” 

Just then the children heard their 
mother calling. 

“It’s time to rake the earth and leaves 
from the garden beds,” she said. “The 
tulips and daffodils want to blossom. 
Please get your rakes, Polly and Peter, 
and uncover the garden.” 

“Oh, mother,” said Polly. 

“Oh, mother,” said Peter. 

Then Polly looked at the garden. It 
was long and wide. It would take a long 
time to rake off the leaves, each thought. 

“You do it, Peter,” begged Polly. 

“No, you do it, Polly!” said Peter. 

But just then Polly saw something in 
the garden path. She went down on her 
knees to look at it. 


THE ANTS 


119 


‘‘Come, Peter, oh, do look herel’^ Polly 
called. 

Peter ran and knelt down beside Polly 
on the edge of the path. What they saw 
was very wonderful! 

There was a tiny house all made of 
sand, as if fairy hands had built it. Al- 
though it was only two inches high, it had 
many halls and rooms. There were no 
nails, or mortar, or joints to hold it to- 
gether. It had been built, one grain of 
sand at a time, by balancing and fitting 
the grains together. 

On the other side of the path was a tiny 
little garden worker, dressed all in red 
from head to foot. He was so small that 
the crumb of bread he had found was 
many times larger than he. 

He was hungry but he did not think 
of that. He wanted to get the crumb of 
bread to the tiny sand house, but it looked 
as far across the path to him as a mile 
would look to Polly and Peter. But 
suddenly help came to the little creature. 

A long line of other little workers in 
red stretched themselves across the path. 


120 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

The first one pushed the crumb of bread 
toward the second one, and the second 
one to the third; and so it went on as they 
passed it from one to another. Soon the 
crumb of bread had reached the httle sand 
house and was safely inside. In went all 
the little workers in red, too, to divide the 
crumb for their dinner. 

“Ants!” said Polly. 

“How well they work together!” said 
Peter. 

“Mother says that’s the way they build, 
at night, and each one carrying a grain of 
sand,” Polly added. 

Then Peter thought of something. 
“Let’s work together raking up the 
leaves,” he said. 

“Oh, yes, that is what we will do!” 
Polly said. 

It took only a short time to finish rak- 
ing together. Then Polly and Peter 
went back to their play. 

“I am going to ask Molly and Ruth to 
come over and jump rope with me,” Polly 
said. “Molly and I can turn the rope for 
Ruth to jump.” 


THE BEAUTIFUL ROAD 


121 


Peter looked at his marbles, too many 
to play with alone. 

“I shall ask Tom and Bobby to come 
over and play with me,” he said. “We 
can have more fun playing together.” 

Then Polly and Peter laughed. 

“We're doing things together, like the 
ants,” they said. 


XXX 

THE ROAD THAT WANTED TO 
BE BEAUTIFUL 

Once upon a time there was a little, 
narrow road that went from the country 
to the town, and all winter long and ever 
since it had been made the fall before, 
it had been brown and plain to look at. 
It was quite crooked, for no one had taken 
any pains to cut it straight, and it was 
full of stones, and all day long the feet 
of great horses and heavy rumbling 
wheels passed over it and cut it and left 
their deep marks in its brown earth. 

But one day there was some wonderful 
news that came flying from the city and 


122 THE 0UTD00R|ST0RY|B00K 

along the little brown road. The little 
Princess Marigold had been ill all winter. 
But now that the spring was coming and 
she was better, the Princess Marigold in 
her blue coach drawn by four white ponies 
was to drive from the city to the country. 

She would take the way of the little 
brown road. 

Then the little brown road, that was 
plain to look at because it was so crooked 
and so full of stones and cut by hoofs and 
wheels, began to want very, very much 
to be beautiful enough for the Princess 
Marigold to ride down. And it longed so 
that the spring heard of its wish. 

Sleeping deep on either side of the road 
were crowds and crowds of purple violets. 
The spring called to the sleeping violets 
and said: 

“ Wake, wake for the brown road’s sake, 

Rise, and bloom, and grow. 

To make a little road bright and gay 
Is why the wild flowers blow.” 

The sleeping violets heard the voice of 
the spring, and they stretched their roots 
and pushed their green leaves up through 


THE BEAUTIFUL ROAD 


123 


the earth and put on their pui’ple hats. 
There were so many of the violets beside 
the road that they made a purple path on 
either side of the road. Oh, it was very, 
very beautiful! 

Then the spring spoke to the wild plum 
trees that grew beside the road, so bare 
and gray, and she said : 

“ Wake, wake for the brown road’s sake, 

Burst your buds and blow. 

To make a little road bright and gay 
Is why the wild trees grow.” 

The bare branches of the wild plum 
tree heard the voice of the spring and 
they burst their buds and covered them- 
selves with a great many white blossoms. 
The wind took some of the blossoms and 
spread them on the little brown road. Oh, 
it was still more beautiful! 

Then the spring spoke to all the gray 
cocoons that hung to the little bushes and 
the old boughs close by, and she said: 

Wake, wake for the brown road’s sake. 

Leave your cradles low. 

To make the little road bright and gay 
Fly merrily to and fro.” 


124 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


Then all the gray cocoons heard the 
voice of the spring, and the grubs that 
had slept inside all winter woke, and grew, 
and burst open their gray coverings, and 
came out butterflies. Yellow and white 
and gold, the butterflies flew to and fro 
above the little brown road. And the 
road was almost as beautiful as it could 
possibly be. 

But last of all the spring called to a 
little dark bird that had the sweetest voice 
of any in the woods, and she said : 

“ Sing, sing for the brown road’s sake, 

When the setting sun is low. 

The song that a little road loves to hear. 

And only the thrushes know.” 

So the wood thrush heard the voice of 
spring. Every afternoon, late, when the 
sun was just about to set, the wood 
thrush came out of the woods and sat on 
the very tip top branch of one of the wild 
plum trees and sang a song that was like 
a flute and a violin and a sweet singer’s 
voice all melted into one bird song. Then 
the road was so beautiful with the spring 
that it could not have been any prettier. 


THE BEAUTIFUL ROAD 


125 


And one afternoon the little Princess 
Marigold, driven in her blue coach that 
was drawn by four white ponies, came 
down the little road on her way from the 
city to the country. She leaned over the 
side of her coach and smelled the crowds 
and crowds of purple violets that blos- 
somed on either side, and she touched the 
wild plum blossoms that fluttered down 
in the breeze and made a white carpet for 
her coach wheels. The butterflies flew in 
front of her and behind her and on either 
side, and one great white butterfly lighted 
on the Princess’ shoulder and rode with 
her a little way. Then the wood thrush 
came out of the woods and lighted on the 
very tip top of a tree and sang his sunset 
song. 

‘^You said that it was only a little 
brown road that I must take,” said the 
Princess to one of her couriers. “It is the 
prettiest road I ever saw,” which was 
quite true, for the spring had been kind 
to it, just as she is to other little wheel- 
trodden, bare, brown roads. 


126 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


XXXI 

THE LITTLE PLOWBOY 

The entire kingdom was excited be- 
cause the king had lost the shining, 
sparkling, beautiful jewel that he wore 
in his crown. 

“His majesty should never have taken 
the jewel out,” sighed the wise man of 
the kingdom. “He should have remem- 
bered that it is very unsafe to walk about 
among the village houses and over the 
fields with so precious a stone as the 
crown jewel in his hand. Of course he 
would be apt to drop it.” 

But the wise man knew, and everybody 
else knew, in fact, that just because it 
was so precious was the reason why the 
king had carried the crown jewel about 
with him. 

It had been the shining, sparkling, 
beautiful jewel of the king’s father’s 
crown, and it had belonged to his father 
before that, and before that, even, to the 
first king of all. It was a kind of magic 
jewel because, whenever a king wore it 


THE LITTLE PLOWBOY 


127 


in his crown, its shining, sparkhng, beau- 
tiful hght helped him to be true and kind 
and wise. It was like a star shining in 
the pathway of the king to show him the 
right way to go. Each king knew that 
he must take good care of the crown jewel 
and leave it for the king who should come 
after him. 

And now the crown jewel was lost! 

The king offered a greait reward of 
land and a greater reward of money and 
the greatest reward of all — a seat beside 
him in the throne room — for whoever 
should find the jewel and return it to him. 
Bulletins about these rewards were posted 
in every part of the kingdom and every- 
one was greatly excited. Indeed, the 
king’s subjects began to think more about 
what the king would give them for finding 
the crown jewel than they did about how 
important it was for the kingdom that it 
be found and put back in its proper place. 
And this made all kinds of unexpected 
happenings in the kingdom. Soldiers 
left the boundaries of the kingdom un- 
guarded; bakers left their bread to burn 


128 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

in the ovens; shoemakers left their shoes 
half finished; and the children ran away 
from learning their lessons, all in a vain 
search for the jewel. 

Halmer started out very early one 
morning to look for the jewel. Hahner’s 
father was the goldsmith and his shop 
was full of precious stones, so the boy 
felt sure that he would be able to know 
the king’s jewel if he found it. Up and 
down the streets Halmer looked, and in 
all the lanes. Here he pushed aside an 
old person who was in his way and there 
he stepped upon the good little creeping, 
crawling creatures of the earth in his care- 
lessness. He passed a thirsty child who 
could not reach to the basin of the village 
fountain for a drink, but Halmer did not 
lift her up. Halmer searched all day for 
the lost jewel but he did not find it. 

Jean, the little plowboy, was quite as 
excited as all the others were over the 
search. He lived at the end of the vil- 
lage with his mother and tended the 
fields for her almost as well as a gi'own 
man could have done. All day long Jean 


THE LITTLE PLOWBOY 


129 


held the plow handles in his strong, hard 
little hands and guided the plow up and 
down the fields. Once when the king had 
walked by, as he sometimes did, alone, 
and toward the end of the day, he had 
stopped and told Jean how fine and 
straight his furrows were. Jean remem- 
bered the king’s kind voice now and his 
o^vn happiness at the praise. How he 
wished that he could find the jewel for 
his king! 

But it was nearing time for the fall 
planting of the wheat. Jean’s mother’s 
wheat fields yielded the whitest, richest 
flour in the whole kingdom, so Jean knew 
that it was very important that he get the 
field ready. The earth was dry from a 
long summer’s drought and there were 
many stones and rough stubble to take 
out. Up and down the field J ean 
stumbled wearily, never even looking up 
at the blue sky or stopping to listen to 
the birds’ song. To himself he said over 
and over again as he guided the plow, “I 
want to serve my king. I want to serve 
my king,” and his eyes were blinded with 


130 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


tears because he could not leave his plow- 
ing to look for the crown jewel. 

That was why he did not see it at first. 
Then he caught sight of the shining, 
sparkling, beautiful jewel lying right in 
front of him where his plowshare had 
turned up a clod that had covered it. 
The king had dropped it there the eve- 
ning he had watched Jean at work. 
Holding it tightly in his hand, Jean ran 
to the castle. 

Scarcely any one could understand how 
it had happened that Jean, the little 
plowboy, should have won the great re- 
ward of land, and the greater reward of 
money, and the greatest reward of all — 
a seat beside the king. 

“He kept right on plowing and never 
looked for the crown jewel at all,” said 
Halmer, which, perhaps, if one stops to 
think, was the very reason why he found 
it. 


THEjPRINCESS BUTTERFLY 131 

XXXII 

THE 

HOUSECLEANING OF THE 
PRINCESS BUTTERFLY 

Although it was a castle, it was being 
house-cleaned, and the queen, her very 
own royal self, was overseeing it. 

Down in the castle kitchen the cook and 
all the little scullery boys were polishing 
the brass and copper pots until they could 
see their faces in them. In the castle 
throne room the head chamberlain was 
putting new velvet cushions on the throne. 
Up in the castle tower the ladies-in- 
waiting, with big mob caps tied over their 
powdered hair, were driving out all the 
grandfather spiders who had spun webs 
from the ceiling. 

Every single person in the whole castle 
was helping with the cleaning except one. 
That was the little Princess Butterfly 
who had never done a bit of work in all 
her ten years, and of course was not going 
to now when the castle was so upset. 

She was as pretty and as dainty and 


132 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

as fond of sweets as the butterfly for 
whom she had been named. She loved, 
just as butterflies do, to flit from one 
place to another, not doing one thing for 
long at a time. She chose dresses of gold 
color and red and blue, a butterfly’s 
colors, and she had the court dressmaker 
design them with wings through which 
she could slip her arms and almost fly. 
The day on which the castle house- 
cleaning began, the Princess Butterfly 
put on a gold dress, while her mother, the 
queen, watched her sadly. 

“Would you not like to put an apron 
on over your dress and help us, little 
daughter?” she asked. 

“Oh, no, mother dear!” the Princesfs 
Butterfly said. “The sun is shining and 
I want to go out in the garden and play.” 

The castle garden was a most beautiful 
place. There was the old court gardener, 
always ready to stop his work and lean 
on his spade as he told the Princess 
Butterfly the secrets of the roses. There 
was the wandering wind that sang to the 
Princess and carried her so lightly over 


THE PRINCESS BUTTERFLY 133 

the grass that her feet scarcely touched 
the ground. 

There was the royal cat, huge and 
yellow, who basked in the sunlight of the 
garden beds but was always ready to 
play. And there was the toad who be- 
longed to the castle. He wore a jewel in 
his head, and always sat on the edge of 
the pool to admire the Princess when she 
smiled at her own pretty face in the water. 

The castle garden was a much 
pleasanter place, the Princess thought, 
than the castle at housecleaning time. 
Out she ran on the tip toes of her little 
gold slippers and she did not stop until 
she had reached the court gardener, who 
was bending over a flower bed. 

“Once upon a time there was a little 
pink rosebud,” the Princess began, coax- 
ing the gardener for a story. But the 
gardener did not turn from his work. 

“I am sorry, your Highness,” he said, 
“but I am much too busy to tell you a 
story today. This is housecleaning time, 
and I am taking off the lilies’ leaf bed- 
quilts and carting them away in my 


134 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

wheelbarrow. Are you not houseclean- 
ing, your Highness?” he asked. 

“Oh, no, indeed!” said the Princess 
Butterfly. “I am playing, so I will go 
farther on.” And she spread her arms 
wide in the wings of her gold dress and 
ran down the garden path, calling to the 
wandering wind. 

“Here comes her royal Highness, the 
Princess Butterfly! Blow, wandering 
wind, for she wants to fly higher today 
than she ever did before.” 

But the wandering wind did not pay 
the slightest attention to the request of 
the Princess Butterfly. The wind was 
far, far ahead of her in the garden, 
brushing the paths and dusting the trees. 
As it worked, it called back to the 
Princess Butterfly, 

“I am housecleaning, too. Are not 
you?” 

“Oh, no, indeed,” said the Princess 
Butterfly. “I am playing, so I will go 
farther on,” and she ran to the sunny spot 
in the garden where the royal cat, huge 
and yellow, was always ready to play 


THE PRINCESS BUTTERFLY 


135 


with her. She took a little golden ball 
from her pocket and tossed it to the 
royal cat, but he paid not the slightest 
attention to it. He was washing his paws 
and washing his ears and washing the tip 
of his yellow tail. 

mew, I am cleaning, too. Are 
not you?” asked the royal cat. 

“Oh, no, indeed,” said the Princess 
Butterfly. “I am playing, so I will go 
farther on.” And the Princess Butter- 
fly hastened on until she came to the 
beautiful place in the garden where the 
pool of the fountain shone like a blue 
mirror. She pulled out her curls and 
smoothed her skirts and spread the 
golden wings of her dress. Then she 
looked deep down in the pool at her re- 
flection and then up again to see how 
pleased and admiring the royal toad 
would be. But the royal toad was not 
seated as usual on the edge of the foun- 
tain. The Princess Butterfly looked and 
looked the garden through for him. 

At last she found him with the court 


136 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

gardener, catching and eating bugs and 
grubs just as fast as he could. 

^^Ker-chunk-ker-choOj I’m cleaning, 
too, the garden through. Are you?” 
croaked the royal toad to the Princess 
Butterfly. 

The Princess thought a moment before 
she answered. Although the court gar- 
dener was very old, and the wandering 
wind loved to fly, and the royal cat was 
very playful, here they were all working. 
And here, too, was the toad, not a bit too 
proud to work although he wore a jewel 
in his head ! After she had thought of all 
these things she answered the toad: 

“Yes,” said the Princess Butterfly. “I 
am going into the castle now to help my 
mother, the queen, clean house.” 

So the Princess Butterfly went into the 
castle, and folded her wings down, and 
put on an apron to keep her dress clean. 
She helped the smallest scullery boy 
scour the big brass pot, and she sewed 
the tassels on the new velvet cushions for 
the throne. She helped the ladies-in- 
waiting chase the spiders from the castle 


THE SPIDER 


137 


tower, and then she washed the faces of 
all her twenty-five dolls and cleaned the 
dolls’ house. 

“I never had such a pleasant day in 
my life,” the Princess Butterfly said that 
night as her mother, the queen, tucked 
her in bed. ‘‘I believe that I will have 
my dresses made without wings after this ; 
wings take me so far away from the castle 
when it is this delightful housecleaning 
time.” 

And her mother, the queen, smiled a 
twinkling, wise smile as she kissed the 
Princess Butterfly good night. 

XXXIII 
THE SPIDER 

The Spider crawled out from her 
sheltered place beneath a stone and 
looked at the world. 

Everything was very different now. 
The trees had dressed themselves, some 
in white blossoms, and some in pink, and 
some in a cloak of green leaves. The 
ground was covered with blades of new 


138 THE OUTDOOR^TORY BOOK 

green grass. They looked as high to the 
Spider as the trees in the woods looked 
to Gerald. So the Spider crawled in and 
out of the tall grass blades, thinking how 
pleasant it was to have the earth green 
again, and she also thought of something 
else. 

‘T’ll spin a little web among these 
grasses to swing in. It will shine with 
defw drops and sparkle in the sunshine,” 
was what the Spider thought. 

So the Spider began spinning long 
silver threads from the web stuff that 
she always carried with her. She spim 
one long silver thread, and then another 
long silver thread to cross it, and fastened 
them to the green grass blades. It was a 
long way for the Spider to go and her 
threads were so fine that the breath of 
a breeze caught them, and pulled them 
away from her. It took many, many 
threads to make a web. The Spider was 
busy from the time the sun peeped over 
the hills in the morning until it went 
down behind them at sunset, and even 
then she had not finished. She worked 


THE SPIDER 


139 


another day, and still another. Then her 
web home was finished, and it was very 
beautiful indeed. 

‘T shall sit here all the spring and the 
summer,” the Spider thought to herself. 

But just as she thought that, she felt 
her web home shaking. The house cat, 
walking through the grass, had caught 
her paws in it. It lay on the ground, 
torn and spoiled. The Spider had a web 
no longer. 

The Spider might have been discour- 
aged, but she thought to herself again, 

‘T must have a little web among these 
grasses to swing in. It must shine with 
dew drops and sparkle in the sunshine,” 
was what the Spider thought. 

So again she began spinning long silver 
threads from her web stuff, and this time 
she spun more, and fastened them more 
securely to the blades of grass. She 
rested her web with its finely woven 
center on a strong leaf so that it might 
be safe. From sunrise to sunset she 
worked, and then from another sunrise 
to another sunset. So her web was fin- 


140 


THE OUTDOOR STORY ROOK 


ished once more, and it was even more 
beautiful than the first one. 

“I shall be able to enjoy the view from 
here all summer,” the Spider thought, as 
she settled herself in the center of it. 

But just as she thought that, she felt 
an earthquake beneath her. It was the 
mole who lived deep down in the earth 
below the leaf on which the Spider had 
rested her web. Up he came, and down 
tumbled the Spider. As for the web, oh, 
the mole carried it away on his nose. 

The Spider might have given up then, 
but instead she thought to herself, 

'T am going to have a little web among 
these grasses to swing in.” And she went 
to work again. 

Before she had finished, an April 
shower came, and the drops broke her 
lengthwise threads before she had been 
able to spin the crosswise ones. Just as 
she had spun a new center for her web 
with all the threads safely crossed, Gerald 
walked through the grass and stepped on 
it. So the Spider had to begin spinning 
all over again. 


THE SPIDER 


141 


She might have stopped spinning then, 
but what she really did was to go right 
on. Then, for the fifth time, she spun 
herself a little web, and when it was fin- 
ished she sat in it and swung in the 
pleasant spring weather. It was a beau- 
tiful web. At night it shone with dew 
drops, and in the daytime it sparkled in 
the sunshine. 

As the Spider swung in her web home, 
she could see what was going on about 
her. The ants built their hills, and then 
built them again when they fell down. 
The larks made nests in the meadows, 
and then made them over again when the 
plowing tore them up. And the Spider 
watched Gerald as he tried to build a 
house for his rabbits. 

The boards did not fit at first, and 
when Gerald had cut them to fit, he had 
not enough. When he had brought more 
boards, he nailed the house, but he did not 
put the nails in straight and the boards 
fell apart. So Gerald gave up making 
the house for his rabbit. It lay in pieces 
on the ground. 


142 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOIv 

“I wouldn’t have given up if I had 
been that boy,” the Spider thought. She 
would have told Gerald if she had been 
able to talk. 


XXXIV 

FATHER WOODCHUCK’S 
PARTY 

Father Woodchuck sat at the door of 
his little house in the side of the hill sun- 
ning himself. He was feeling very con- 
tented and happy. It was spring, the hill 
was green, and everything pointed to its 
being a good season for vegetables. 

Father Woodchuck had another rea- 
son, too, for feeling pleased. Not far 
from him were his four little Woodchuck 
boys. They were small yet, but they 
would grow. They had shovel feet just 
like their father’s, and they were digging 
themselves a play room in the soft dirt 
of the hill. When they grew up, each 
would have a house of his own in the side 
of the hill. They were planning how they 
would make their own houses as they dug. 


FATHER WOODCHUCK’S PARTY 


143 


The eai*th smelled of the spring as they 
threw it up high with their little shovel 
feet. Close at hand were green twigs that 
tasted as good, when the Woodchuck boys 
nibbled the bark, as sticks of candy taste 
to a real boy. 

Suddenly they heard something. It 
was a whistle, coming to them from the 
direction of home. One Woodchuck boy 
started to run as fast as he could and 
two others followed. They knew what it 
meant. They reached home and saw 
Father Woodchuck’s head, only, sticking 
out of the hole that was their front door. 
He was whistling through his teeth to call 
them, for he had heard the footsteps of 
Jack, the farm dog, coming across the 
field. 

“Where is your brother?” Father 
Woodchuck asked of the three Woodchuck 
boys as they scampered in the house in the 
side of the hill. 

“He kept right on digging,” they told 
him. 

But when Jack had passed around the 
hill and Father Woodchuck knew that it 


144 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


was safe to be out again, they found the 
fourth Woodchuck boy safe over at the 
play house. He was whistling softly to 
himself, for he felt proud. He had not 
minded Father Woodchuck, and had crept 
under a bush, but Jack had not found him. 

Father Woodchuck did not know what 
to do about it. While his boys were small 
he spent most of his time watching for 
dogs and traps, and whistling to them to 
come straight home when he saw danger. 
And the fourth Woodchuck boy always 
whistled back, and didn’t mind. Even his 
mother did not know what to do with him. 

One day when Father Woodchuck knew 
that crisp green lettuce heads were to be 
found in the farm garden, and beans and 
peas had begun to fill the pods, he planned 
a party for the Woodchuck boys. They 
took naps in the sunshine all day so as to 
be ready for it. When it was evening and 
the new moon shone down like a big gold 
platter on the hill, they started out. 
Father Woodchuck went first to show the 
way and the four Woodchuck boys fol- 
lowed. They scampered down the hill and 


FATHER WOODCHUCK’S PARTY 


145 


through the long grass in the field. They 
were going to the farm garden for their 
party. 

“Keep close to me, boys. This is a dan- 
gerous trip!” Father Woodchuck whis- 
tled softly as they crawled under the 
garden wall and began to feast. They 
gnawed lettuce leaves and opened bean 
pods; they nibbled juicy roots and began 
to look like little fur balls, they were so 
fat. No one was out to stop them. They 
were all alone in the garden, and the 
fourth Woodchuck boy fed farther and 
farther aWay from the others. He felt 
quite safe in doing this. 

Suddenly, though, he heard his father 
whistle. There was a great scuttling 
among the lettuce heads and Father 
Woodchuck and the three Woodchuck 
boys got out through the garden wall just 
in time. Jack, the farm dog, had wakened 
and was after them. 

“Who cares? I’m all right!” whistled 
the fourth Woodchuck boy as he opened 
another bean pod. 

Father Woodchuck did not care to 


146 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

whistle, even, as he sat at the door of his 
little house in the hill the next day. The 
sun was just as bright, the hill was just 
as green, and he knew that it was a good 
season for vegetables, but there were only 
three little Woodchuck boys digging their 
playhouse close by. 

But as he sat there feeling lonely, a 
little Woodchuck boy limped up the hill. 

“This way; here I am!” Father Wood- 
chuck whistled joyfully, and the fourth 
Woodchuck boy came straight home. He 
had left one of his little shovel feet with 
Jack, and he did not feel like working on 
the playhouse for a long time. But he sat 
with his father in the door of the little 
house in the hill, and Father Woodchuck 
told him all that he knew about traps, and 
dogs, and whistling. 

XXXV 

ARBOR DAY IN SHADY LANE 

It was moving day in Shady Lane, for 
the tallest, shadiest maple tree had been 
cut down and carried to the sawmill. 


ARBOR DAY IN SHADY LANE 


147 


''Chee, chee, how my back does ache!” 
chattered the squirrel, as he moved his 
provisions from his old pantry in the 
stump of the tree. “What was the use of 
being so saving all winter and giving so 
few tea parties, when here I am with no 
home in the spring?” 

''Tweet, tweet, it’s lucky I had not 
quite finished my nest in that tree,” sang 
the brown thrush. “Now I must begin all 
over again somewhere else, but I do love 
to live in a maple tree, for the leaves are 
so thick,” and the thrush flew off to sit in 
a bush and feel sorry. 

“Now I shall not be able to live very 
long,” breathed the violet who had opened 
her buds beneath the tree. “The sun 
beats down upon me so that I shall 
wither.” 

But just then something happened in 
Shady Lane. The squirrel and the brown 
thrush and the violet all saw it, and told 
the rest of the Lane afterward. 

The children came, two by two, and 
singing. And the oldest, strongest child 
came first, carrying very carefully a 


148 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK. 

young, beginning maple tree. The brown 
thrush understood best of all what the 
children sang, for she was a singer herself. 

“For every tree that is taken away, 

We plant another on Arbor Day.” 

Those were the words of the children’s 
song. 

They touched the stump of the old tree 
sorrowfully, and then they dug a deep 
hole and set out the new tree beside the 
stimip. It stood there, straight and 
strong, and ready to grow. 

When the children had gone the squirrel 
came over and looked at the Arbor Day 
tree. 

^^Chee, chee/^ he chattered. “This is 
going to be a fine home for my grand- 
children.” 

The brown thrush flew to the tip top of 
the Arbor Day tree and sang. 

“Just the place for me to sing to the 
sunset every night,” she said. 

“I shall live,” breathed the violet, “for 
Arbor Day has brought me a new tree for 
shade and shelter.” 


SUMMER 


























WHAT THE SUNBEAMS SAW 


151 


XXXVI 

WHAT THE SUNBEAMS SAW 

The sun rose and stood, bright and 
shining, on the top of the eastern hill very 
early one summer morning. She wore a 
beautiful pink dress, and all around her 
were her children, the sunbeams, some of 
them dressed in pink, but one in gold. 

“Scamper,” said the sim to the sun- 
beams, “scamper, and shine, and then come 
back to me this afternoon, late, and tell 
me what you have seen.” 

So the sunbeams started out very early 
that summer morning, down the hill and 
in different directions, shining all the way, 
and trying to see something interesting 
that they could tell their mother, the sun, 
before they went to bed. 

One sunbeam, dressed in pink, went to 
the woods and peeped in the woodpecker’s 
hole in the old pine tree. The woodpecker 
was a carpenter, and before he went to bed 
he had been sawing out a house for himself 
in the tree. His house was not finished, 
but he had begun it on the east side of 


152 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


the old pine tree so that he could see a sun- 
beam, very early, if one should come to 
call on him. So the woodpecker got up 
just as soon as the sunbeam came, and 
went straight to work on his house again. 

Another sunbeam, dressed in pink, went 
to the little white house in the orchard 
where the bees lived. And just as soon as 
the sunbeam tapped on the door of the 
little white house, although it was very 
early in the morning, out came a little bee 
dressed in yellow and carrying her market 
basket. 

“Oh, I am so glad to see you. I was 
waiting for you,” buzzed the bee. “Will 
you come with me this morning and show 
me the way, for I have to go two miles to 
find a field of buckwheat?” 

So the sunbeam went with the little bee, 
who was up and dressed and waiting for 
her so early in the morning, all the way to 
the field. 

The third sunbeam, dressed in pink, 
went over the pasture and peeped in the 
hole that the fat woodchuck had made for 
himself in the stone wall. The fat wood- 


WHAT THE SUNBEAMS SAW 


153 


chuck opened his eyes at once. He rolled 
out of his hole and hurried off just as fast 
as he could trot across the pasture in the 
shining little path that the sunbeam made. 
The fat woodchuck did not stop until he 
had come to the farmer’s garden. He 
squeezed under the fence and went into the 
garden and stayed there quite a long time. 
No one saw the woodchuck because it was 
so early. 

The other little sunbeam, who was 
dressed in gold, went farther than the rest 
until she came to a house where a little 
boy lived. She felt sure that he would like 
to see her because of her gold dress, and 
for another reason, too. On her way to 
the house the sunbeam met the milkman, 
and the milkman told her a secret. She 
wanted, oh, how much the sunbeam wanted 
to tell the secret to the little boy ! 

So the sunbeam climbed up to the second 
story of the house and shone in the window 
of the little boy’s room, but he did not 
wake up. Then the sunbeam shone and 
shone. The little boy opened his eyes and 
saw her, but he squeezed them tight shut 


154 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


again. The sunbeam was discouraged, but 
she didn’t give up. She kept right on 
shining and after a while the little boy 
opened his eyes again. 

‘‘Now I shall be able to tell him the 
secret,” thought the sunbeam; but the little 
boy scowled and got up and pulled down 
the curtain. He wouldn’t let the little 
sunbeam who was dressed in gold come in. 
Then he went back to bed again. 

After a while it was late in the after- 
noon and all the sunbeams found their 
mother, the sun, waiting for them on the 
top of the western hill. She wanted to 
hear all that they had seen during the day, 
and the first sunbeam told her about the 
woodpecker who was a carpenter. 

“He got up and went to work as soon 
as he saw me,” said the sunbeam. 

“And what happened to the wood- 
pecker?” asked the sun. 

“He finished his house today,” the sun- 
beam said. 

And the second sunbeam told about the 
bee. 

“She was up and dressed, and waiting 


WHAT THE SUNBEAMS SAW 


155 


at her front door before I came,” said the 
sunbeam. 

“And what happened to the bee?” asked 
the sun. 

“She filled her basket with honey,” the 
sunbeam said. 

And the third sunbeam told about the 
fat woodchuck. 

“He started out for the farmer’s garden 
as soon as I came,” said the sunbeam. 

“And what happened to the wood- 
chuck?” asked the sun. 

“He had all the beans he could eat for 
breakfast,” said the sunbeam. 

Then the fourth sunbeam, who was 
dressed in gold, stood in front of her 
mother, the sun, looking very sorrowful, 
and she told about the little boy. 

“I had a secret for him,” the simbeam 
said, “but he wouldn’t let me go in and 
tell it to him. He shut me out and went 
back to bed.” 

“And what happened to the little boy?” 
asked the sun. 

“Oh, he lost a ride with the milkman,” 
the sunbeam said. “That was the secret. 


156 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


The milkman was going to give him a ride 
if he got up early.” 

“Well, never mind, my dear,” said the 
sun as she put on her purple cloak and 
took all the sunbeams down behind the 
hill to bed, “you did all you could. It 
wasn’t at all your fault. And you can 
try again tomorrow.” 


XXXVII 

THE FLOWER THAT WOULD 
CLIMB 

As soon as the seed burst its hard, dark 
coat and sent its two little green hands up 
through the earth, it saw the window with 
the flower curtains. 

The curtains looked as pretty as a gar- 
den. There were blue flowers and pink 
flowers, and lavender flowers in their pat- 
tern, all mixed with green leaves. Early 
in the morning they fluttered out of the 
window, and shone in the sunshine. The 
seedling clapped its two little green hands 
to see the window. 


THE FLOWER THAT WOULD CLIMB 157 


‘‘I always felt that I ought to cliinb,” 
it thought as it stretched up higher and 
higher. “I must reach the window and 
look inside.” 

It was not so easy to climb, though, as 
the seed had expected it would be. Very 
few seeds start with that great secret in 
their hearts. Almost every growing thing 
in the garden is content to stay down low, 
near the earth. And that was not the 
worst of it. The garden tried to keep back 
this plant that wanted to climb. 

‘‘We will hold your feet so that you 
can’t get up any farther,” rustled the 
grasses Who Were a very sociable little 
green family, and always wanted all the 
new seedlings to stay with them for com- 
pany. It was pleasant and cool down 
there among the grasses, and a comfort- 
able place to live. 

But the plant knew that it was meant 
to climb, so it did not listen to the grasses, 
but pushed its way up through them. 

“I’ll cut your hands off!” That was the 
wicked thought of the beetle who was a 
cross old fellow, and took his way like an 


158 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


Ogre through the garden, hurting tender 
young plants. 

But the plant that wanted to climb grew 
so fast that it began to be a vine, and was 
soon up so far that the beetle couldn’t 
reach it. 

“We must choke this new vine,” the 
weeds thought, who were the giants of the 
garden and spent their days doing just 
that to the young garden plants. The 
weeds were tough and strong, and very 
few could live where they grew. 

But the vine grew a little faster and had 
soon gone way up over the heads of the 
weed giants. There it was, all alone and 
slender and with nothing to hold it. The 
vine felt a little frightened up there in the 
air. What if it should break before it 
should reach the window, it thought! 

Just then along blew a frolicsome 
breeze. 

“Come and play with me,” the breeze 
whispered to the vine as it blew it this way 
and that, twisting it and bending it. “I 
Avill take you away from the garden and 


THE FLOWER THAT WOULD CLIMB 159 

show you all the world that lies on the 
other side of the wall.’* 

“Oh, no, I must stay here in my place,” 
the vine thought as it pulled away from the 
breeze. It knew that it was never intended 
to join hands with the breeze and go for 
a journey, while its feet stayed behind in 
the earth. 

So the vine grew and grew, and at last 
it was able to touch the house and cling 
with its tendril fingers to the rough, red 
bricks. It was getting higher now, and 
nearer the window. 

Before it reached the second story, 
though, the vine began to get very thirsty. 
The sun shone on it every morning, and 
it had come so far that it was a long way 
from the damp earth and the dew. 

“I am wilting,” thought the vine as it 
drooped and felt dried, but just then it 
heard the tinkling voice of the raindrops. 

“Drink us; drink us, brave little vine!” 
pattered the raindrops, and the vine 
drank the rain and grew and grew. 

Now it had almost reached the window 
with the prettiest curtains of the whole 


160 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


house. It made the vine discouraged to 
see them, though. It was not as pretty as 
they. There were purple pansies, and 
blue forget-me-nots, and violets close to 
the earth that did not even think of 
climbing. 

‘T should like to be beautiful, too,” 
wished the vine, and suddenly the wish 
came true. Now that its climbing was 
done, the vine felt itself budding. Then 
it was all covered with pink flowers, like 
fairy bells. It peeped in the window, be- 
tween the pretty curtains, and there was 
the vine’s other surprise. 

It was the nursery window, and the New 
Baby, as pink and white as a flower him- 
self, was awake and cooing in his cradle. 
It was worth all the trouble of climbing 
to see the New Baby. The vine tossed 
its pink bells for joy. It was as beautiful 
as any other blossom in the garden. It 
had really climbed, and everyone that came 
in to see the New Baby saw it, too, a pretty 
pink morning glory 1 


THE APPLE TREE Sl'ORY 


161 


XXXVIII 

THE APPLE TREE STORY 

Once upon a time there was a child who 
wished very, very much for a red apple. 
He wanted to look at it and then make a 
picture of it with his red pencil. He 
wanted to cut it into quarters and give 
one quarter to his mother, and one quarter 
to his sister, and one quarter to his little 
friend, and eat one quarter himself. So 
the child started out to find a red apple, 
saying as he went, 

“A little red apple, round and sweet, 

I want, to look at, share and eat.” 

The first person that the child met was 
a farmer. When the child spoke to him, 
the farmer said: 

“If you want a red apple, round and sweet. 

To look at, share, and then to eat. 

You must farther go until you’ve found 

An apple seed sleeping in the ground.” 

So the child went farther until he came 
to an orchard where apple seeds had been 
planted deep down in the rich earth. And 


162 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


the child called to one of the apple seeds, 
and said; 

"Apple seed, apple seed, planted deep. 

Wake, oh, wake from your orchard sleep ! 

A rosy red apple, round and sweet, 

I want to look at, share and eat.” 

But when the child spoke to the apple 
seed it said : 

"If you w’ant a red apple, round and sweet. 

To look at, share, and then to eat. 

You must farther go until you’ve found 
A place where rain has softened the ground.” 

So the child went on farther until he 
came to a place where gray clouds were 
sending silver raindrops down to the earth. 
And the child spoke to the rain and said ; 

"Fall, little raindrops, all around. 

To soak and soften the orchard ground. 

A little red apple, round and sweet, 

I want, to look at, share, and eat.” 


But when the child spoke to the rain, it 
said; 

"If you want a red apple, round and sweet. 

To look at, share, and then to eat. 

You must farther go until you’ve found 
A place where sunshine has warmed the ground.” 


THE APPLE TREE STORY 


163 


So the child went on farther until he 
came to a place where the great round sun 
was sending down a host of bright sun- 
beams to the earth. And the child spoke 
to the sunbeams, and said: 

“Shine, little sunbeams, all around. 

To warm the earth of the orchard ground, 

A little red apple, round and sweet, 

I want, to look at, share, and eat.” 

But when the child spoke to the sun- 
beams, they said: 


“If you want a red apple, round and sweet. 

To look at, share, and then to eat. 

You must farther go until you see 
A seed that has grown to an apple tree.” 

So the child went on farther until he 
came to a place where a new, straight little 
apple tree had sprouted up through the 
ground in an orchard. And the child 
spoke to the apple tree, and said : 

“Little new apple tree, that grew 
From an apple seed the seasons through, 

A little red apple, round and sweet, 

I want, to look at, share, and eat.” 

But when the child spoke to the new 


164 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


little apple tree, it fluttered its leaves and 
said: 

“If you want a red apple, round and sweet. 
To look at, share, and then to eat. 

You must farther go until you see 
Pink apple blooms on an apple tree.” 

So the child went on farther until he 
came to a place where an apple tree was 
all covered with a great many pink blos- 
soms. And the child said to the apple 
blossoms: 

“Pretty pink blooms on the apple tree. 
Whisper when you will give to me, 

A little red apple, round and sweet. 

To look at, share, and then to eat?” 


And when the child spoke to the pink 
apple blossoms, they whispered back to 
him: 

“Oh, first the wind through the tree must blow. 
And all our pretty pink petals go. 

To give you an apple, round and sweet. 

To look at, share, and then to eat.” 

So the child spoke to the wind that was 
waiting and singing just outside of the 
orchard gate, and he said: 


THE APPLE TREE STORY 


165 


“Come to the orchard, wind, and blow. 

Till all the apple blooms’ petals go, 

A little red apple, round and sweet, 

I want, to look at, share, and eat.” 

Then the wind came into the orchard. 
It blew, and blew until all the petals of 
the pink apple blossoms were blown away, 
and in the place of each blossom was a 
wee, wee, green apple. Each wee, wee, 
green apple grew with the summer to a 
red apple. And the child came then and 
picked a red apple, and carried it home. 

He looked at the apple’s rosy red cheeks 
and then he made a picture of it with 
his red pencil. When the picture was 
finished, he cut the apple into quarters 
and he gave one quarter to his mother, and 
one quarter to his sister, and one quarter 
to his little friend, and he ate one quar- 
ter himself. 


166 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


XXXIX 

WHAT THE PANSIES 
THOUGHT 

There was once upon a time a round, 
shining five-cent piece with a picture of 
an Indian on one side, and it went down 
town in a little boy’s pocket to buy some- 
thing. 

And the little boy and the five-cent piece 
came to a candy shop, and the five-cent 
piece rolled around and around in his 
pocket because it was afraid that it would 
be spent for chocolate drops and be eaten 
up. But the little boy passed by the cand}^^ 
shop and went on and on until he came to 
another shop and he went inside, and 
bought five cents’ worth of flower seeds. 
Then he went home and planted the seeds 
in his garden. 

No sooner had he covered the seeds with 
earth than they began to call to the earth 
in their tiny voices, and they said: 

“Oh, Mother Earth, help us to grow up 
so that we may blossom in this garden and 
tell what we are thinking about.” 


WHAT THE PANSIES THOUGHT 


167 


Mother Earth heard tlie seeds calling 
to her, but it was still early in the spring, 
and she needed help, too. So she called to 
the sun and she said, 

“Oh, Sun, come down and warm the 
garden so that I may help the seeds to 
grow up and blossom, and tell what they 
are thinking about.” 

The sun sent a whole crowd of bright 
sunbeams down to Mother Earth and 
they warmed the seeds, but still they, too, 
needed help. So the sunbeams called to 
the sky and they said, 

“Oh, Sky, send down some raindrops 
so that they may help us to help Mother 
Earth to help the seeds to grow up and 
blossom, and tell what they are thinking 
about.” 

So the sky sent a shower of raindrops 
down to Mother Earth and she held them 
so that the seeds could drink, and the seeds 
began to grow. They sent out tiny root 
feet to hold themselves firmly in the 
ground, and they sent little leaf hands up 
through the ground, but still they were not 
able to blossom. 


168 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

So they beckoned with their small leaf 
hands to the little boy who had planted 
their seeds, and they said, 

“Oh, little boy, come and take care of 
us. Mother Earth and the sunshine, and 
the raindrops have helped us, but we need 
to have you help us, too, so that we may 
blossom and tell what we are thinking 
about.” 

So the little boy came out to the garden 
with his spade, and his hoe, and his green 
watering pot. He dug away the weeds 
that wanted to choke the plants, and he 
loosened the earth so that they might 
grow better. He watered the plants 
every morning and every afternoon, and 
one day when he went out to the garden 
he found that it was full of flowers. 

He thought that they were the most 
beautiful flowers he had ever seen. They 
all had queer little faces, like fairies, and 
they wore velvet caps of different colors, 
purple, and yellow, and blue. They stood 
up very straight in the garden and bobbed 
their heads in the wind to him. They 


THE DANDELION 


169 


seemed to be trying to say something to 
each other. 

The little boy gathered a bunch of the 
flowers and took them in to his mother. 

She liked them very much indeed. She 
held their soft little faces close to her face, 
and then she said, 

“Pansies — for thoughts.’’ 

“What are they thinking about, 
Mother?” the little boy asked. And his 
mother said, “They are thinking how glad 
they are that you bought flower seeds with 
your flve-cent piece instead of candy.” 


XL 

THE DANDELION 

The dandelion grew and bloomed and 
stood up as tall and as pretty as she could 
in the center of the meadow. She wore a 
beautiful green-leaf dress, cut in points, 
and the south wind had curled her yellow 
hair all over her little round head in fluffy 
gold. 

“Now, will you please take a message 


170 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

for me to the little boy who lives at the 
end of the meadow behind the garden 
gate?” the dandelion asked the grasses 
very politely. 

“Nothing would give us greater plea- 
sure,” rustled the long grasses who talk a 
great deal in the summer time, as anyone 
knows who listens to them. 

So the dandelion whispered a message 
to the grasses, and they told it to each 
other all the way across the meadow and 
carried it through the garden gate to 
Roger. 

“There is a yellow dandelion out in the 
meadow,” the grasses told Roger. “She 
says that she will let you play with her if 
you like, and make her, with all the rest of 
the family, into a dandelion ball!” 

Roger thought a moment. Then he an- 
swered the grasses, “Perhaps I will make 
a dandelion ball tomorrow,” he said. “It 
would be too much trouble today.” 

The grasses told this to each other, and 
then they told it to the yellow dandelion 
who shook her fluffy gold head sadly. 
She was not able to understand how it 


THE DANDELION 


171 


could be too much trouble to make any- 
thing pretty. But she whispered another 
message to the grasses. They told it to 
each other, once more, all the way across 
the meadow, and carried it through the 
garden gate to Roger. 

“There is a yellow dandelion out in the 
meadows,” the grasses told Roger. “She 
sa3^s that she will let 3^011 pick her if you 
like, and all the rest of her family, to give 
in a bunch to your mother!” 

Roger thought again. Then he an- 
swered the grasses, 

“Perhaps I will pick a bunch of dande- 
lions for mother, tomorrow,” he said. “It 
would be too much trouble today.” 

“Oh, dear!” murmured the grasses, 
“how shall we tell her?” And when they 
did tell the yellow dandelion she bowed 
her fluffy gold head sorrowfulhL 

“How could it be too much trouble to 
do an3rthing kind?” she thought. Then 
she waited a week, but at last she whis- 
pered a third message to the grasses. 
They told it to each other all the wa3^ 
across the meadow, and cai-ried it for a 


172 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

third time through the garden gate to 
Roger. 

“There is a yellow dandelion out in the 
meadow,” the grasses told Roger. “She 
says that she will let you dig her up, and 
all the rest of her family to make a pot 
of good greens for your grandmother.” 

Roger thought and thought. He 
thought about the heat in the meadow, 
and how it made his back ache to dig. 

“Perhaps I will dig some dandelion 
greens for my grandmother tomorrow,” 
he said at last. 

“How can we tell her?” sighed the 
grasses. So they carried Roger’s mes- 
sage back by the longest way. They 
rustled it to the bushes beside the road, 
and the bushes told it to the leaves on the 
trees, but it reached the dandelion in spite 
of that. When she heard what Roger had 
said, the yellow dandelion stood up very 
straight indeed, holding her fluffy gold 
head high. There was nothing more that 
she could do for a little boy, but she had 
decided what she was going to do herself. 

One day when it was later in the sum- 


THE LUCKY CLOVER 


173 


mer Roger went out of the garden gate 
and started across the meadow. He was 
going to find the yellow dandelion and 
all her family and make them into a ball. 
He followed the call of the rustling 
grasses until he came to the place in the 
center of the meadows where the dande- 
lion had stood ; but, oh, she Was not there ! 
In her place was a little withered, old 
dandelion lady with a bald head, for her 
gray hair had all blown off. She wore a 
dried leaf dress, and was no longer 
pretty. 

The yellow dandelion had not waited 
for Roger, but had gone away. 


XLI 

THE LUCKY CLOVER 

‘T must have a four leafed clover,” 
Tommy said on the first day of the 
summer vacation. ‘T can put it in my 
shoe and it will make me lucky all sum- 
mer long.” 

‘‘And so must I have a fom* leafed 


174 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

clover,” Bobby said on the same day, “to 
put in my shoe and make me lucky all 
summer long.” 

So Tommy and Bobby put on their 
sun hats and started out. 

“Dear me, here they come!” thought 
the four leafed clover. “They mustn’t 
see me,” and she hid herself deep down 
in the meadow grass. 

“Here is a big clomp of clover,” 
Tommy shouted. “I’ll find a four leafed 
one here, I know,” and he knelt down on 
the grass to look. But Bobby had spied 
the farmer at the other end of the meadow 
cutting down oats, and was calling to him. 

“If you will help me,” the farmer said, 
“I will give you a big red apple. Go over 
to the pump in the barnyard and bring 
me a dipper full of water to drink. 
When you take the dipper back help 
yourself to an apple in the barn.” 

So Bobby brought the farmer’s drink 
and had a red apple for himself. Then he 
went back to Tommy, who was still 
hunting for his luck in the clump of 
clover. 


THE LUCKY CLOVER 


175 


“There isn’t a single four leafed one 
here,” Tommy said in a discouraged way. 
“But I think we can find one on the town 
green.” 

Then Tommy and Bobby went as far 
as the town green that was covered 
thickly with clover. 

“I’ll find a four leafed one here, I 
know,” Tommy exclaimed, and he began 
hunting. 

Bobby was going to hunt, too, but he 
saw the postman’s little blue cart and his 
vdiite horse standing on the green. It 
was noon, now, and the horse had his 
dinner hung over his head in a bag. lie 
could not reach the grain, though. The 
bag hung down too far from his nose. 
Bobby reached up and tightened the rope 
that held the bag, and just then the post- 
man came along. 

“That’s fine!” he said when he saw 
what Bobby had done. Then he put his 
hand deep down in his pocket and pulled 
out a bright penny, which he gave to 
Bobby. 

“There isn’t a single four leafed clover 


176 THE OUTDOOR STORY ROOK 

here,” Tommy said, coming along just 
then. “Perhaps we could find one at 
home in your garden, Bobby.” 

So Tommy and Bobby went home to 
Bobby’s garden where there were a great 
many clover leaves growing in the grass. 

“There must be a four leafed clover 
here,” Tommy said, beginning to hunt 
again. Bobby thought a minute and then 
he remembered that he had not fed the 
chickens that morning. He mixed some 
mush for them and took it down to the 
chicken yard. 

Cut, cut, ca, da, cut, he heard the little 
brown hen clucking. And when he went 
in the henhouse, he found a freshly laid 
egg in her nest. He took it in the house 
to the cook, who said it was just what 
she needed to make a lemon pie for 
dinner. 

“No luck for us!” Tommy said sorrow- 
fully as he and Bobby sat down on the 
back steps. “We didn’t find a four leafed 
clover.” 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” 
Bobby said as he gave Tommy a bit of 


THE FROWZY LITTLE WEED 


177 


his apple, and showed him his penny, and 
thought about the lemon pie. 

“How lucky I was!” the four leafed 
clover thought that night as she got ready 
for bed out in the meadow. “I shouldn’t 
have liked at all being put in a boy’s 
shoe.” And she folded her four little 
petals, and said her prayers, and went to 
sleep. 


XLII 

THE FROWZY LITTLE WEED 

Once upon a time, when it was summer, 
there were three plants that grew in the 
same garden. One was a squash plant 
and one was a cornflower plant and one 
was a frowzy little weed. These three 
plants had the saine mother earth who 
took care of them from the time they 
were in their cradles, and each had plenty 
of sunshine. But from the day these 
three plants came up, they were very 
different. 

The squash plant decided to bear a 
squash, and to do that it knew that it had 


178 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

first to be a vine. So it grew, and reached 
out its tendril fingers to help itself along. 
This was not at all easy for there were 
sticks and stones in the way, but at last 
it was a vine. Then it worked hard and 
held up a big yellow flower. The squash 
vine was very proud indeed of its flower 
and did not want to give it up, but it had 
to in order to have a squash. So the 
squash flower withered and died, and in 
its place on the vine there gi’ew a fat 
yellow squash. 

It was the best squash anywhere 
around, everyone said. It was picked to 
be made into the Thanksgiving pie, but 
when it was cut up the gardener said, 

“Save the squash seeds! It is such a 
fine squash that I shall want to plant 
another just like it next spring.” 

The cornflower plant decided to be a 
blue flower, and to do that it knew that 
it must stay right there at home in the 
garden and grow. So it grew and grew, 
straight and as strong as it could. It 
wanted very much to go for a journey 
and see the world, though. From its 


THE FROWZY LITTLE WEED 


179 


place in the garden the cornflower plant 
could see many other gardens, more 
beautiful and larger than its own. It 
would have liked to go and see them but 
it was too busy at home, raising its bud, 
to do that. At last it had a bud which 
opened into a prettj^ blue flower. How 
dainty and sweet the blue cornflower was ! 
It did seem a pity that it should have to 
stay at home and not show itself to the 
other gardens. But it bloomed as beauti- 
fully as it could all summer long, until 
one day the gardener said, 

“Why, there goes the cornflower!” 
And just as he spoke all the cornflower’s 
seeds, that its mother earth had planned 
all along should have wings, went flying 
off through the air to plant themselves in 
other gardens. 

All this time, all summer long, the 
frowzy little weed had been busy, too. 
She had drunk the rain and enjoyed the 
food her mother earth gave her like a 
greedy little pig, but she never even tried 
to do anything useful in the garden. 
She didn’t raise a vegetable or have a 


180 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

pretty flower. All she did from morn- 
ing until night was to get in the way of 
the other plants, and if anyone tried to 
move her, she stuck her feet more tightly 
in the ground and just tried to be dis- 
agreeable. Her leaf dress grew ragged, 
and she never washed off her dusty face 
in the dew. Oh, she was a very frowzy 
little weed by the end of the summer I 

About that time, though, as the fall 
was near and all the plants began making 
plans about what they were going to do 
next year, the little weed began to plan, 
too. She had enjoyed making trouble, 
and so she tried to think how she could 
go on doing the same thing next season 
too. She must plant herself all over 
again, she knew, if she was going to keep 
on being disagreeable. So she looked 
herself over, and she found that she had 
a seed. 

Such a seed as it was, though, hard, 
and covered with prickles! No one would 
want to plant such a seed, the weed knew, 
even if it had been a useful seed. It 
would prick their fingers. The weed 


THE FROWZY LITTLE WEED 181 

thought and thought, and at last she had 
an idea. When the gardener’s little boy 
came out, the weed stuck her prickly seed 
to his stocking and he walked off with it 
there ! 

By the time he reached the sheep pas- 
ture, though, the little boy felt the seed 
sticking into him. 

“One of those old stick-tights,” he said 
as he pulled it off. 

So the seed was not yet planted, hut a 
sheep came by just then, and the seed 
stuck to its wool. 

The sheep did not like the feeling of 
the prickly seed, though, any more than 
the little boy had. As soon as it could, it 
rubbed up against the fence and left the 
seed sticking there in a crack. And there 
the seed stuck to the fence all winter, 
getting harder and dryer and more 
shriveled up all the time so that it couldn’t 
have grown even if it had been planted. 

And that is how there was one less 
frowzy little weed to make trouble in a 
garden the next summer. 


182 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


XLIII 

THE BEETLE WHO CAJiRIED A 
LIGHT 

Once upon a time a small, dark beetle 
caane to live with the other beetles in a 
garden. 

Xo one thought very much of him for 
he did not wear a suit of annor like the 
rest of the beetles, and there was nothing 
in the least imusual about him. The 
beetle family thought itself very impor- 
tant indeed on account of being a 
family of fighters, and because it be- 
longed to the little army that protected 
the garden. 

There was the lady bug who could fight 
as well as the rest of them. She wore a 
suit of red and flew here and there in the 
camp of the grasses, catching and killing 
tiny insects that would have eaten the 
clover tops. 

There was the fierce tiger beetle, wear- 
ing so bright a suit of armor that it glis- 
tened in the sunshine as if it were set 
with rubies and emeralds. Such a fierce 


THE BEETLE WHO CARRIED A LIGHT 183 

old warrior as the tiger beetle was! He 
had a very large mouth and strong jaws. 
He would hide in the earth or under a 
leaf until an insect came along on its way 
to sting a root or a vegetable. Then, 
snap, would go the tiger beetle’s great 
jaws, and the insect was eaten up! 

And, oh, there was the funny old bury- 
ing beetle who spent all his time trying 
to keep the garden camp picked up and 
clean. He wore a suit of orange and 
black, and had claws with which he could 
dig so well that he did not need a spade. 
If a little bird dropped from its nest to the 
ground and died, the burying beetle and 
all his helpers hurried to cover it with 
earth. He could even bury a mouse, and 
thought himself very, very important. 

It was no wonder that the others looked 
with scorn upon the small, dark beetle 
that came to live in the garden. He was 
plain in his dress and ways, and he seemed 
to do nothing all day long but try and 
hide himself. 

“Fly away home,” the lady bug said to 
him. She had heard the children say this 


184 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

to her so often that she knew it by heart. 
“Your house is on fire. Your children 
will burn.” 

But the small, dark beetle had no home. 

“Can you bite?” asked the tiger beetle. 
“If you can’t use your jaws for killing, 
don’t come near me.” 

So the small, dark beetle flew away 
from the tiger beetle as fast as he could. 

“I’ll bury you; I’ll bury you,” said the 
grave-digging beetle whom he met just 
then. So the small, dark beetle hid him- 
self under a leaf, and the others thought 
that they had driven him out of the 
garden. 

But all day long he stayed there. The 
sun shone on the garden, and then it set. 
The lady bug flew about until she could 
see no longer, and the tiger beetle was 
not able to kill because it was too dark to 
watch for the insect enemies. The bury- 
ing beetle could not dig any more that 
day, and the beetle camp was quiet. 

All at once, though, the camp was 
surprised. Into the garden flew a giant, 
the June bug, who thought that he would 


THE STORY OF TWINKLE 185 

be safe there, in the dark, and could eat 
a juicy leaf for his supper. The camp 
had no sentinel; it was quite unguarded, 
but suddenly a tiny lantern flashed out 
in the dark. It blinded the June bug, 
who was a stupid old giant in spite of 
his size. He bumped his head against 
the trunk of a tree so hard that he be- 
came quite dizzy, and had to leave with- 
out his supper. 

“Who is it that carries a lantern in the 
dark and guards our camp?” asked all the 
beetles. 

And then they saw that it was the 
small, dark beetle whom they had looked 
upon so scornfully. He was the firefly, 
wonderful, flashing, and a light in the 
darkness ! 


XLIV 

THE STORY OF TWINKLE 

The White Owl told the story. He 
said he had known Twinkle for ever so 
many years, but in all that time she had 
never grown the least bit older. She was 


186 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

always the same gay little star, trotting 
around among all the great stars with 
nothing special to do, because, you see, 
she was the smallest one in the whole sky 
full. 

She never kept still a minute, the 
White Owl said. She wanted to sit on 
the tip of the Little Bear’s ear, but he 
wouldn’t let her. She was always trying 
to carry the Dipper about, only it was 
so heavy that she couldn’t lift so much as 
tlie end of the handle. 

Once she lost herself in the Milky 
Way. For days and days the White Owl 
didn’t see her, but one evening he saw her 
again. 

There she was, perched on a cloud, and 
looking just as pretty as ever. She was 
not the least bit crumpled or mussed from 
being in such a crowd of other stars, but 
the White Owl thought that she looked a 
little sorrowful. 

“What’s the matter. Twinkle?” the 
White Owl asked. 

“Oh, I’m not very happy,” Twinkle 
called down sadly. “I haven’t anything 


THE STORY OF TWINKLE 


187 


to do up here in the sky, and nobody 
seems to want me — I am so small 1” 

Now the White Owl was a kind old 
fellow. He had a fine warm heart under 
his feathers. He felt sorry for Twinkle, 
so he thought he would try to cheer her 
up a bit by telling her the things he was 
seeing. 

'‘You stay right there, Twinkle,” he 
said, “and I’ll tell you about Dear Heart. 
She hasn’t gone to sleep — yet^ 

“Who is Dear Heart?” asked Twinkle, 
leaning over the edge of the cloud to 
listen. 

“She is a httle, little girl,” said the 
White Owl. 

“She lives in the house down here by 
the pine-tree. She has had her supper 
and she has been put in a nice, cool, white 
bed. The lights in the nursery are turned 
very low. Dear Heart’s kitten is fast 
asleep by the fire. The white pony is 
asleep in his stall in the barn. The Teddy 
Bear is fast, fast asleep in the doll’s 
house, but Dear Heart can’t seem to close 
her eyes.” 


188 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


“What will you do about it?’’ Twinkle 
asked. She seemed very much interested. 

“Oh, I’ll do something,” said the 
White Owl. “I will call the dream 
sheep.” 

So the White Owl flapped his wings 
three times, and called from the top of 
the pine-tree: 

"'Too-whoo, too-whoo-oo! Ah, what 
shall we do to send Dear Heart to sleep — 
sleep? 

“Come, little white sheep, 

Down a little white hill. 

Following one by one, until 

Seven are over — so white, and so still. 

“Do you see them?” asked the White 
Owl. “Are they coming?” 

“Yes,” Twinkle could see them. They 
were coming slowly in a long line. 

“One-two-three-six-seven-there,” she 
said. “The last one has gone by.” 

^^Sshr said the White Owl, “or you’ll 
spoil it all. Why, bless me! Dear Heart 
is still awake.” 

“Well, what is to be done now?” 
Twinkle asked. 


THE STORY OF TWINKLE 


189 


The White Owl scratched his forehead 
with one claw for a minute, and then he 
spoke. 

‘T am afraid it is really a case for the 
Sandman,” he said. “I don’t like to call 
him because he is such a busy old chap, 
and once you send for him, why, a child 
has to have him every night. The Sand- 
man sat down to rest under the pine-tree, 
here, yesterday morning on his way home, 
and he said his stock of hobby-horse 
dreams gave out six months ago, and he 
hasn’t had time to make any more. The 
only really square meal he has had in a 
year was the evening when he met the 
Man in the Moon at the cross-roads and 
got a bit of porridge from him! 

“But I suppose I shall have to call the 
Sandman — ” 

So, once more, the White Owl flapped 
his wings three times, and once more he 
called from the top of the pine-tree: 

''Too-whoo, too-whoo-oo! Ah, what 
shall we do to put Dear Heart to sleep — 
sleep? Come, Sandman! 

“Do you see him anywhere in the 


190 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


road?” asked the White Owl anxiously, 
after a pause. 

“He is climbing in Dear Heart’s win- 
dow,” said Twinkle. “He will sprinkle 
sand in her eyes with his feather-duster, 
and then she will close her eyes and go to 
sleep — ” 

"'Ssh, Twinkle ! There he is coming out 
of the window. But, bless me! He has 
used up all his sand, and Dear Heart is 
not asleep!” said the White Owl. 

It really did not seem as if there was 
anything else to be done; but now comes 
the strangest part of the story. The 
White Owl told it, so of course it is true ! 

Twinkle called softly down from the 
sky: “I am coming down. I think I am 
just big enough to put Dear Heart to 
sleep.” 

So Twinkle gathered her rays around 
her just precisely the way a fairy picks up 
her petticoats before she jumps — and 
then she fell — and fell — and fell — and 
then fell some more. 

She just touched the White Owl’s head 
on the way down, and there, where she 


THE STORY OF TWINKLE 


191 


kissed him, he has had a little patch of 
silver on his feathers ever since. Then 
she sifted herself softly through the 
nursery blind, and twinkled herself over 
to Dear Heart’s bed, and she filled Dear 
Heart’s eyes so full of star shine that they 
had to shut to keep it all in. Dear Heart 
was fast asleep at last. 

Even if the White Owl hadn’t told the 
story you could be quite sure that it was 
true. When Dear Heart woke up in the 
morning there was the starshine in her 
eyes still. 

And what do you suppose happened? 
Why, Twinkle had set a fashion! When 
she tumbled down from the sky, it made 
the other stars think they’d like to try it, 
too. 

You never knew where the falling 
stars went? Listen! Every one comes 
tumbling down to close some Dear 
Heart’s sleepy eyes, and to fill them with 
starshine for the morning! 


192 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


XLV 

THE CRICKET WHO RAN 
AWAY 

He was a very young Cricket or he 
never would have thought of doing any- 
thing so unwise. His home was a crack 
under the doorsill of the house, snug and 
warm in the winter, and dark and cool 
in the summer. Here, every evening 
about tea time, the Cricket used to sing 
all the tunes he knew; slow, dewy tunes 
that made the morning glories and the 
four o’clocks think about closing their 
petals for the night; faster, busy tunes 
that made the old teakettle think about 
singing, too; and quaint, sleepy tunes 
that never failed to put the Baby to sleep. 
It ought to have been pleasure enough for 
the Cricket just to listen to his own pretty 
music and to live in the crack under the 
doorsill, but one day he went away. 

It was a warm day in the late summer 
when it is almost fall but nobody minds 
at all because all the orchards smell of 
apples, and the fields smell of pumpkins. 


THE CRICKET WHO RAN AWAY 


193 


It was a day when the meadow band was 
playing. The thrushes played the flute, 
and the frogs played drums, and the 
grasshoppers scraped away upon fiddles. 

From his crack under the doorsill the 
Cricket heard the music. He peered out 
and he saw a red leaf hop-skipping across 
the garden on its way to the meadow. 

‘T want to sing with the meadow 
band,” the Cricket chirped to himself. 
‘T am of no use at all to anybody here 
under the doorsill. My music is quite 
wasted when I might sing over there in 
the meadow and help the leaves to dance.” 

So the Cricket brushed his black waist- 
coat until it glistened in the sunshine, and 
he hopped from beneath the doorsill 
down the garden path and under the 
garden gate. 

He found the lane very warm indeed 
and very dusty. But he hurried along, 
trying to overtake a few red and yellow 
leaves who hopped on ahead and seemed 
to know the shortest way to take to reach 
the meadow. 

Once he bumped his head very hard 


194 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

against a fat little pebble that lay in the 
middle of the lane. 

“How stupid you are!” rustled a vain 
little red leaf who came up from behind, 
but the Cricket did not answer her. Why 
should he notice such an impertinent little 
person when he was the one who was 
going to help her to dance. 

Once he fell into a ditch and was nearly 
drowned, but he managed to pull himself 
out. 

“How very awkward you are!” rustled 
a proud little yellow leaf as she floated 
lightly over the ditch, but the Cricket did 
not answer her either, and presently he 
came to the meadow. 

Such a noise as there was there! The 
thrushes were nearly bursting their 
throats playing their flutes; the frogs’ 
drums boomed loudly and the grasshop- 
pers’ Addles kept up a lively tune — =loud 
and piercing. All over the meadow the 
care-free little leaves in their red and 
yellow party dresses danced about in a 
merry, one-legged fashion in time to the 
music played by the meadow band. 


THE CRICKET WHO RAN AWAY 


195 


“Here I am,” chirped the Cricket, as 
he brushed the dust of the journey from 
his black coat and perched himself upon 
the top of a clover stalk, where he might 
be both seen and heard. 

But the little leaves in their red and 
yellow party dresses danced farther and 
farther away from him and the thrushes’ 
flutes and the frogs’ drums and the grass- 
hoppers’ cellos, instead of keeping time 
to his music, played in different measure 
altogether. So the Cricket stopped sing- 
ing, jumped off his clover stalk and 
hopped over to the edge of the brook 
where a grandfather frog was playing a 
bass drum. 

Chug-a-rum, chug-a-rum, boomed the 
grandfather frog’s drum. Then the 
grandfather frog looked at the little 
Cricket a minute ; looked him all over and 
noticed how small he was. He croaked 
very scornfully: 

“You can’t sing with the meadow band. 
Nobody could hear you. You don’t be- 
long here,” and then he went on playing 


196 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

his bass drum again. Chug-a-rwm, chug- 
a-rum. 

It was really quite true what the 
grandfather frog had said. The tunes 
that the Cricket could sing were very 
pretty indeed. In fact there were no 
tunes in the whole world quite so sweet, 
but they were so very low that the other 
meadow sounds drowned them. It was a 
great disappointment to the little Cricket, 
but he hopped away from the meadow 
and down the lane toward his own garden 
gate. His little cricket heart was nearly 
breaking and he couldn’t think of any- 
thing to do but to go home. 

“I’m of no use at all,” he chirped, 
as tired and lame and dirty, he crept into 
his crack under the gray doorsill of the 
house just at sunset time. “Nobody 
needs me and I’m never going to chirp 
again,” he went on, but just then he 
heard an impatient rustling and murmur- 
ing among the flowers. He peered out 
to see what the disturbance was about and 
he heard the flowers’ soft voices, 

“We can’t go to sleep without the 


THE CRICKET WHO RAN AWAY 197 


Cricket’s music,” murmured the Morning- 
glories. 

“Neither can we!” rustled the Four- 
o’clocks. 

Just then the House-Mother came to 
the doorway. 

“I can’t make the tea kettle sing for 
supper,” she said, “and the Baby doesn’t 
want to go to sleep. I believe it is be- 
cause the Cricket isn’t singing tonight.” 

Oh, how happy the Cricket was! He 
began to sing at once. It was a new tune 
that he sang, so pretty that the Morning 
glories and the Four-o’clocks went to 
sleep directly, dreaming pretty dreams 
about butterflies and bees. As for the 
old tea kettle^ — as soon as it heard the 
Cricket’s chirp it began to sing so hard 
that it lost off its cover with a great 
sputtering. And the dear Baby? Why 
he went right to sleep smiling because of 
the Cricket’s new tune. 

Long after the whole world was asleep 
and it was very dark in the garden, the 
Cricket kept on chirping. He just 
couldn’t stop because he was so happy. 


198 THE];OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

What was his tune about? Why, 
about how nice it is just to live in a little 
crack under a doorsill and sing. 


XL VI 

THE FEATHER IN HIS CAP 

There was once a little boy who wanted 
a feather to stick in his cap because he 
thought that this would make him seem 
as fine as a prince. But his mother had 
none in her hat, nor could she find one in 
any of her bandboxes. 

“If you want a feather to wear in your 
cap, I am afraid you will have to go and 
look for one,” she said to him. 

So the little boy started out to find a 
bright feather for himself. 

He had not gone very far when he 
caught up with a small red hen who was 
hurrying along the road as fast as she 
could go. 

“Oh, wait,” called the little boy to the 
small red hen. 


THE FEATHER IN HIS CAP 199 

“Will you give me a feather gay and fine 
To stick in the band of this cap of mine?" 

The small red hen did not even cluck 
in reply, but hurried on, the little boy 
running after her, until she came to the 
hen yard. She went in through the gate 
and the little boy after her. 

All of the red hen’s brood of chickens 
waited for her there. As soon as they 
saw her, they ran, peeping, to her. She 
gathered them under her wings and 
spread her feathers over them, for they 
were new chicks with very few feathers 
of their own. 

As he looked at her, the httle boy saw 
that the small red hen had not one single 
feather to spare. 

So he went out of the hen yard, and 
farther on. Before he had gone a very 
great distance he came to a neat cottage 
by the side of the road. Through the 
window he could see a little girl just 
about his own age who was very busy 
indeed. She wore a pink gingham sweep- 
ing cap, and a pink gingham apron. 
She had a huge new feather duster in her 


200 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


hand. It was full of long, pretty feath- 
ers. As she saw the little boy, she came 
to the window and waved her hand to him. 

The little boy called to her. 

“Will you give me a feather gay and fine 
To stick in the band of this cap of mine?” 

he asked. 

The Httle girl looked surprised. Then 
she shook her head and went back to her 
work. She dusted the flowered curtains 
and the clock that had a cuckoo inside. 
She dusted the china cat on the mantel- 
piece and the cushioned chair in which 
the grandmother always sat. The little 
boy watched her at her work of tidying 
everything, but she did not give him a 
feather. He could see that she had not a 
single one to spare. 

He left the cottage and he went on 
again. After a while he came to the 
park. He walked along the paths be- 
tween the pretty flower beds and sud- 
denly he saw, in a green space, a very 
beautiful peacock. Its tail was spread, 
and each of the wonderful feathers 
glistened gold and green and blue. It 


THE FEATHER IN HIS CAP 


201 


seemed as if the peacock had too many 
feathers in its tail. “Surely,” the httle 
boy thought, “here is the feather for me.” 
So he spoke to the peacock and said, 

“Will you give me a feather gay and fine 
To stick in the band of this cap of mine?" 

The peacock turned and made a loud, 
harsh noise. It was like a squeak, and a 
scream, and a growl all in one. The 
little boy covered his ears and ran away. 
The peacock did not know how to behave, 
and the little boy thought that it would 
not be safe to wear a peacock’s feather in 
his cap. 

Now he had come quite a long way and 
he decided that he ought to go home, since 
there did not seem to be a feather for him 
anywhere. It was growing dark, too, and 
he did not like the dark. There were tall 
trees on either side of the path and there 
was a little bit of the woods to go through. 

“I’m afraid. I am going to cry!” he 
said to himself. 

Then he changed his mind. 

“I’m brave. I shall walk right through 
the dark!” he said. 


202 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

So the little boy hurried along and be- 
fore he knew it he was home. 

His mother was very glad to see him 
again. She was waiting for him at the 
door. 

“You were gone a long time,” she said, 
“so I am sure that you found a fine 
feather for your cap.” 

“Oh, no, I didn’t,” the little boy said, 
taking off his cap as he went in the door. 

“But, look!” his mother said. “Look 
what is sticking in the side of your cap!” 

The little boy looked. 

Oh, there, in the side of his cap, was a 
gay, bright little red feather! It had 
dropped there from some bird’s nest when 
he walked so bravely through the dark 
and was not afraid. 


XL VII 

THE MAGIC SPECTACLES 

Something had to be done, and at once, 
about the little Prince Merry Heart’s 
eyes. 


THE MAGIC SPECTACLES 


203 


They were the largest, brownest, 
truest, most shining eyes that ever a little 
Prince could have had, but there was a 
strange aihnent that had attacked them. 
Instead of sparkling, they were dull. In- 
stead of smiling, they dripped with tears 
very often. The little Prince’s eyesight 
seemed to be affected, too. He couldn’t 
see his scattered toys, or find his dowager 
grandmother’s thimble when she asked 
him to. He passed poor folk by in the 
streets of his kingdom without helping 
them, and he spied every extravagant 
plaything that was made and wanted to 
buy it. 

“The Prince Merry Heart needs to 
wear spectacles,” the Court Wise Man 
decided. So a notice was posted to the 
effect on the castle gate, and the best 
spectacle makers in the kingdom were 
invited to come and see what they could 
do to help the Prince’s eyesight. 

“The Prince Merry Heart needs gray 
spectacles,” said one. “They will shade 
his eyes and help his vision by resting 
them.” So a pair of gray spectacles was 


204 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

made for the Prince Merry Heart and he 
wore them every day. 

But instead of making the little 
Prince’s eyes better, they seemed to make 
them worse. He saw only such gray 
things, when he wore them, as storm 
clouds, and rain, and mud puddles — all 
of them unpleasant to look at if one’s 
eyes are not smiling and strong. The 
gray glasses made the little Prince cry, 
so of course they did not do at all. 

‘‘The Prince Merry Heart needs crys- 
tal spectacles,” said another spectacle 
maker. So he fitted the little Prince to a 
pair of these, and the Prince wore them 
every day. 

But the crystal spectacles were no 
better than the other. They made every- 
thing look too huge to the little Prince. 
His pet cat was as large as a tiger, and 
his dear dowager grandmother looked 
like an ogress. The smallest task seemed 
a mountain to climb, and his bread and 
milk looked like a lake. The crystal 
spectacles made the little Prince afraid. 


THE MAGIC SPECTACLES 205 

SO everyone knew that they were not the 
right spectacles for him. 

“The Prince Merry Heart needs blue 
spectacles,” said the most important 
spectacle maker of them all. So the little 
Prince was given a pair of dark blue 
goggles, and everyone hoped that at last 
his eyes would be well. 

It was very strange, though, about the 
blue spectacles. They were worse than 
either the gray or the crystal ones. As 
the little Prince wore them every day, 
they gave everything he looked at the 
color of unhappiness. They made the 
sun look dark and the flowers dull. They 
took away the pretty colors of his toys, 
and painted shadows all around him. 
The blue spectacles made the little Prince 
sorrowful, so it was very plain that he 
could not wear them. 

And no one knew what to do about the 
little Prince’s eyes, for the only kinds of 
spectacles that were known of in those 
days were gray ones, and crystal, and 
blue ones. 


206 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

There was a most beautiful garden 
around the palace, and there the gar- 
dener’s little girl laughed and played all 
day long. She was as merry as a bird, 
and as care free as a butterfly. She was 
as sweet as a flower, and as tender as the 
summer wind. This was wonderful be- 
cause she lived in a very small, poor cot- 
tage and she had much work to do and 
very few toys. It made the little Prince 
wonder, and he wished, as he watched her, 
that he were as happy as she. 

One day the gardener’s little girl was 
running up and down the green paths in 
the garden, singing to herself, and 
smiling to herself when she was not 
singing. 

“What makes you so happy?” asked 
the little Prince, as he met the gardener’s 
little girl. 

“I don’t know,” answered the garden- 
er’s little girl. She held a pink rose in her 
hand, and as she spoke she took off one 
thin, pink petal and held it up to her eyes 
to look at the rosy color. “Oh, how 
pretty!” she cried. “How can I help 


THE MAGIC SPECTACLES 


207 


being happy when everything is so 
beautiful?” 

Then she ran on, but she had given the 
little Prince a thought. He ran as fast 
as he could to the castle. 

‘T want a pair of rose colored specta- 
cles,” he said. “I must have rose colored 
spectacles to make me see better.” 

No one, of course, had ever heard of 
rose colored spectacles, but the spectacle 
makers set to work to make them. They 
mixed rose petals, and pinks, and little 
girls’ pink sashes, and bits of sunrise 
clouds, and many other pink things with 
the best glass they could find until they 
had made spectacles of the proper color. 

Then they tried the rose colored spec- 
tacles on the little Ptrince, and it was 
amazing how well he could see through 
them. 

Everything looked the right size, and 
everything looked pretty and happy to 
him. They made a dull day bright and a 
bright day more beautiful. The eyes of 
the Prince Merry Heart were again true 
and shining, and he gave orders that any 


208 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

other child in the kingdom who wanted 
them might have a pair of rose colored 
spectacles. 

And happy people have been wearing 
rose colored spectacles ever since! 


XL VIII 

THE PRINCESS’ LOOKING- 
GLASS 

The whole castle was troubled because 
one of the ladies-in-waiting had broken 
the Princess Primrose’s looking-glass. 

It was not an ordinary looking-glass by 
any means because it had two sides, one 
as pretty as the other. One side was of 
glass as clear as crystal and as shining as 
diamond, and all around the glass was a 
border of blue forget-me-nots set in pure 
gold. In this side of her looking glass the 
Princess Primrose could see reflected her 
own sweet self. She could see bright 
curls and her blue eyes and her pink 
cheeks and her smiling lips. The looking 
glass never showed the Princess Primrose 


THE PRINCESS’ LOOKING-GLASS 


209 


any other picture of herself. If it hap- 
pened, as it often did, that the Princess 
Primrose pouted and frowned and cried 
in a temper, the lady-in-waiting, whose 
duty it was to stand all day long beside 
the mirror, quickly turned it so that the 
other side was the only one that showed. 

This side of the mirror was of solid 
gold, too, but there was no glass in it. It 
was decorated with jewels, and carvings 
of the court crest and the crown and other 
important things. Sometimes, looking at 
this side of the mirror, the Princess 
Primrose grew angrier and cried more 
loudly as she thought how important she 
was. But she did not see her pouting 
face, and that was why they turned the 
mirror. 

No one had thought that the looking- 
glass would ever break. But lately the 
Princess Primrose had been losing her 
temper very often and very suddenly, and 
so it was necessary for the lady in waiting 
to turn the looking-glass ve^y quickly. 
It had fallen to the marble floor and 
broken. What were they to do about it? 


210 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

It would take the glassmakers, and the 
goldsmiths, and the jewelers of the king- 
dom a long time to make the Princess 
Primrose a new looking-glass. 

And as everyone was wringing their 
hands and hurrying to and fro, and get- 
ting more distressed every minute, the 
Princess Primrose sat in the garden and 
scowled and cried because she had no 
looking-glass in which to see her pretty 
little self. Each minute her eyes grew 
duller with tears, and her mouth drooped. 
She did not look like a primrose at all. 

There she was when she saw a strange 
old lady dressed in a purple cloak like the 
color of the sunset sky, standing in front 
of her in the garden path. 

“What are you doing here and what 
do you want?” asked the Princess 
Primrose very crossly. The strange old 
lady dropped a curtsey as she answered: 

“I am looking for the Princess Prim- 
rose,” she said. 

“I am the Princess Primrose,” shouted 
the Princess in a harsh voice and frown- 
ing as she spoke. 


THE PRINCESS* LOOKING-GLASS 211 


“Oh, no, you are not,” said the strange 
old lady. “I have heard that the Princess 
Primrose is very pretty to look at, and 
you are quite an unpleasant looking little 
girl.” 

The Princess Primrose got up and 
stamped her foot. “How dare you say 
that?” she asked. “I am the Princess 
Primrose !” 

“Come with me and look in your mir- 
ror,” said the strange old lady. 

“I have no mirror; it is broken — 600- 
hoo, hoo-hooT cried the Princess, but she 
followed the strange old lady for she was 
curious to find out what she meant. 

The purple cloak floated along in front 
of her as if the wind were blowing a bit 
of cloud, and before she knew it the 
Princess found herself in a comer of the 
garden that she did not remember having 
seen before. Tall ferns and waving 
grasses shut it in and made it a secret 
kind of place. A narrow, winding path 
led up to it, and it was full of singing 
birds. 

In the center of this secret place was 


212 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOR 

a little round pool. It was as clear 
as crystal and as shining as diamond. 
Growing all around the edge of the pool 
were blue forget-me-nots. The strange 
old lady motioned to the Princess Prim- 
rose to come up close to the edge of the 
pool. 

“Here is your mirror,” she said. 
“Look in!” 

So the Princess Primrose looked in the 
clear water and she saw her face as she 
had never seen it before, all twisted and 
ugly with temper. It frightened her ; she 
thought that it must be someone else. 
She turned away in terror and reached 
out her arms to the strange old lady. 

“Smile,” said the old lady, “and then 
look in your mirror again.” 

So the Princess Primrose smiled and 
looked once more in the pool. There was 
a Princess, sweet, pretty, and gay, 
smiling back at her. She clapped her 
hands. “Thank you!” she cried. “I like 
this looking-glass better than the other 
because it has only one side. I shall use 
it all the time.” 


THE PRINCESS AND THE PEDDLER 213 


But the strange old lady was gone. 
All that was left of her was a bed of 
purple violets covering the ground where 
she had stood beside the clear little pool. 


XLIX 

THE PRINCESS WHO RODE 
WITH THE PEDDLER 

The Princess was very unhappy, and 
over such a small matter. Her new gold 
chariot had just been sent to the palace, 
and although it was a very, very beautiful 
chariot indeed, it did not suit her. 

‘T ordered pale pink harnesses for the 
ponies,” she said, stamping her feet in 
their tiny jeweled slippers. “The har- 
nesses are blue. I ordered butterflies set 
in amber on the door, and here is my 
coach door decorated with bluebirds in 
enamel. It doesn’t suit me at all, and I 
won’t ride in it.” Then the Princess be- 
gan to cry. 

Everyone was very much troubled, and 
no one knew what to do about it. A year 


214 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

at least was needed to make a new coach 
for the httle Princess, because it was a 
very particular piece of work. And the 
Court had hoped that the bluebirds on the 
coach door would make the Princess 
happy, just to look at them. 

“Will you not take a ride in my chariot, 
my dear?” asked her father, the King. 

“Oh, I can’t do that,” sobbed the 
Princess. “Your chariot is too large.” 

“Will you not ride with me in my 
coach, my dear?” asked her mother, the 
Queen. 

“Oh, I can’t do that,” sobbed the 
Princess. “Your coach is too high.” 

So the little Princess went to the gate 
in the castle wall and looked up and down 
the road sorrowfully. Never in all her 
life had she wanted so much to take a ride 
as now, when she had nothing that suited 
her in which to go. 

As she stood there a queer little cart, 
painted green, drove up. It was built 
like a toyhouse on wheels, and from the 
inside there came the merriest, rattling 
noise. It sounded as if all the dinner 


THE PRINCESS AND THE PEDDLER 215 

bells and all the kitchen tinware in the 
castle were jingling, and making up little 
tunes of their own. The cart was drawn 
by a little bob-tailed horse and on the 
seat, driving, was a jolly old peddler with 
smiling, twinkling eyes. 

“Why does your Royal Highness 
ciy?’’ asked the peddler, stopping in front 
of the gate. 

“I want to take a ride — ” began the 
little Princess. She was going to explain 
about her new coach which did not suit 
her, but before she could say another 
word, the peddler spoke. 

“Then jump up here beside me, your 
Higlmess,” he said. 

So the Princess took the peddler's 
hand, and she put one little slipper on 
the front wheel, and up she jumped. Olf 
they rattled on the road as gaily as you 
please. The cart was hard and the seat 
veiy high, but the Princess did not mind. 
The birds were singing and the sun 
turned everything to gold. The Princess 
could reach out and pick apples as they 
passed the orchards, and all the time the 


216 THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 

tinware inside the cart kept up the pleas- 
antest kind of music. 

After a while they stopped at a neat 
white cottage, and a neat old granny in a 
cap came out and bought a shiny tea-pot 
from the peddler. 

“That is for making her own tea, isn't 
it?" the Princess asked. 

The peddler shook his head. “Tea for 
herself? Well, a cup or so, perhaps, but 
she always has tea brewing for her neigh- 
bors, your Highness. That’s why she 
needed a new tea-pot. She wore out the 
old one entertaining her neighbors." 

And presently they stopped at another 
cottage, and a little girl bought a shining 
tin dipper from the peddler. 

“That is for her to drink from, isn’t it?" 
the Princess asked. 

“Oh, no," the peddler said. “There is 
a clear spring beside her cottage, and the 
dipper is for her to ca!rry water from it 
to every thirsty traveler who passes." 

And toward the end of the day, a little 
boy ran out from a red farm house and 
bought a tin pail. 


THE PRINCESS AND THE PEDDLER 217 


“That is for him to gather nuts and 
beiTies for himself, I suppose?” the 
Princess asked. 

Again the peddler shook his head. 
“He helps with the milking every day,” 
said the peddler. “His mother keeps a 
dairy and he is her little dairyman.” 

They turned now, and the peddler 
drove toward the castle. “I wouldn’t 
change my cart for the King’s coach,” he 
said. “What could be so pleasant as 
selling good tinware to good country 
folks all day long?” 

“It has been a lovely ride!” said the 
Princess. 

“And there’s a bluebird flying along 
with us,” said the peddler. “That’s be- 
cause he knows how happy we are.” 

The Princess clapped her hands softly 
as she looked up at the bird. 

“Oh, I have the most beautiful new 
coach,” she said. “It has bluebirds all 
over the door. Tomorrow I shall drive 
out in it, the way we went today, and 
visit the country folks.” 


218 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


L 

THE GIANT ON THE HILL 

All the children in the village had seen 
the giant at one time or another and they 
all said the same thing about him, that he 
was very huge and fearsome. 

He lived on the side of a very high hill 
where there were forests so deep that one 
could hardly walk through them, and 
where wild beasts prowled about at night. 
His castle was cut out of solid rock and 
although it was not easy to see him in the 
bright sunshine, one could always see his 
great, huge shape when the sun began to 
set. It often seemed as if he were walk- 
ing down the hill toward the village. 

Everybody was afraid of him. The 
children were afraid of him because they 
thought that some day he would come all 
the way down the hill and eat them up. 
The older folk were afraid that some 
night the giant would swoop down upon 
their orchards and their pastures and 
take their harvests and herds to his castle. 
The old watchman who walked up and 


THE GIANT ON THE HILL 


219 


down the streets at night was afraid of 
the giant’s gruff voice which he heard 
whenever the wind shrieked or the 
thunder rolled. 

And the head man of the village — oh, 
he was more afraid than any of the others 
because he was afraid that the giant 
would one day stalk down and take away 
his office and carry it in one of his great, 
giant hands back up to his hill. 

So after they had all been afraid of the 
giant just as long as they possibly could, 
the people of the village had a meeting 
and decided to offer a reward for the 
person who was able to go up the hill and 
lock the gate of the giant’s castle when 
he was inside so that he would not be able 
to get out. It was a large reward, one 
hundred gold dollars. 

The head man of the village was the 
first to try for the reward. He chose a 
sunny day when the road up the hill was 
bright, but one quarter of the way up he 
heard a noise. Down the hill he ran as 
fast as his feet could carry him. It was 
only a little fox crackling the bushes as 


220 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


he ran along, but the head man had not 
stopped to find out that. 

Then the watchman decided to go up 
the hill, lock the giant’s gate and win the 
reward. He started out very early one 
evening, and he carried two lanterns, that 
he might keep himself from being afraid. 
But half way up the hill he, too, heard a 
noise and he ran down again as fast as 
the head man had run. It was only a 
little night breeze singing in the tree tops 
but the watchman had not stopped to find 
out that. 

And then Peter, the bell ringer’s little 
boy, decided to try his luck. He was only 
ten years old, but he had been with his 
father way up in the church steeple 
among the bats and the dust. And he 
had helped ring the fire bells and the bell 
that told of a bad storm at sea. 

So little Peter started bravely up the 
giant’s hill. 

He heard noises, of course, but he 
looked to see what caused them. He 
made friends with the red fox who walked 
with him a little way, and he listened to 


THE GIANT ON THE HILL 


221 


the wind in the tree tops which kept his 
courage up with its singing. As he 
went farther and farther up the hill, and 
farther and farther away from the vil- 
lage, he found that the way grew easier 
instead of harder. Although it was dark, 
the glow womis and the stars made the 
path as light as day, the trees leaned aside 
to let Peter pass, and the perfume of wild 
flowers led him on. 

At last he suddenly came out at the end 
of the high ledge where the giant’s castle 
was. How strange I There were tall 
pillars and turrets, but one could not 
enter. A great waterfall had worn the 
rock in the shape of a castle but it was 
not really a castle at all. 

There, on the ledge of the rock, stood 
the terrible giant. Peter went up close 
and touched him and then laughed out 
loud. It was only a huge, bent old tree 
whose great crown looked like a head and 
whose long branches looked like huge 
limbs and arms. There was no giant. 

He only lived in the fear of the people 
of the village. And they gave Peter the 


222 


THE OUTDOOR STORY BOOK 


hundred gold dollars, for they were quite 
as happy to know that there was no giant 
as to have him locked inside his castle 
walls. 


















































